Letting out the spare room

Writerlady · Postby **Writerlady** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:28 am

We are thinking of letting out our spare room (lovely double loft room and private bathroom). Does anyone have any advice or experiences good or bad to share? It would be on a Monday to Friday basis and we are a family of four looking for a bit of help towards the ever increasing school fees! In this situation, what is generally expected? Want to be careful to not end up with someone who expects to sit with us chatting every evening but at the same time don't expect someone to sit up in their room the whole time! Haven't shared a house for many years and not sure what the protocol would be, or what people expect for their rent when sharing a busy family home with two kids and two knackered parents!!

alabaster · Postby **alabaster** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:24 am

Think your biggest consideration would be what age/stage of person you want...
eg if they are in the last year of school, you will probably need to have some kind of responsibility for their wellbeing.

Ellie · Postby **Ellie** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 1:11 pm

Hi,

We are thinking of doing the same thing in Richmond and wondered how you got on? Did you get a response from here or any more tips?

Thanks

Ellie

emsken · Postby **emsken** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 1:19 pm

A friend of mine uses this agency http://www.doctorhouse.co.uk/ its a company that finds doctors! She rents it to the same man 3 nights a week ... he pays good money and is a nice man who is also a dr so she feels safe with her kids... x

Writerlady · Postby **Writerlady** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 7:05 pm

Thanks for that tip. I will try that site.
We did actually let out the room very successfully in September and found the most lovely lady who works in town during the week. Very sadly for us she is probably heading back home to the south coast for various reasons bUt it worked very well. The site we used in the end was spareroom.co.UK. Very useful extra money and I have really enjoyed having her here for a few nights a week! We will certainly do again. In this climate there is much talk in our house from my husband of 'sweating our assets'! To that end we did a house swap last summer with a family in Brittany and that was fantastically successful and cost us just our fare!

emsken · Postby **emsken** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 8:42 pm

Ooooh which company did you use to do the house swap?? And did you have to put all of your personal belongings away??

Writerlady · Postby **Writerlady** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 9:10 pm

We used Homeexchange.com. Friends of ours have swapped almost 20 times with never a bad experience, and it certainly worked for us. We swapped with a family with children a similar age to ours and had use of all their stuff like bikes, etc. We don't really have many valuables to worry about but just put some paperwork and other bits out of sight. I think it works because there is a sense of trust - you are in their house looking after all their stuff, and they are in yours. Many of the swappers seem to be parents with children or retired couples with a nice home to swap. I guess you could have a bad experience but I haven't heard of any. London is ultra popular at the moment because of the Olympics too - we've been offered some amazing places to swap!