£1m down back of the sofa

One American couple had more to be thankful for than most on Thanksgiving, after a house clean led to the discovery of a $1.8 million winning lottery ticket.

Harold and Tina Ehrenberg, from Louisiana, were cleaning their house in preparation for guests coming round to celebrate the Stateside holiday when they came across a few lottery tickets.

After checking the numbers, they found a winning ticket from June.

Harold and Tina were just in time, because the winnings have to be claimed within 180 days, meaning they only had two weeks left when they discovered it.

The money is going into a retirement fund rather than a spending splurge, but this is one time when house cleaning turned into anything but a chore.