to think that boarding houses could come back into fashion (not boarding schools)

My GM ran boarding houses, with family members. Those big houses have now been demolised for slum clearance or converted into flats. She made a good living as a LP with four children1930-1950. It kept around 16 of them, they lived in the basements of the houses. If you think rigby in rising damp, that house would be worth millions and has probably been converted. The lodger system replaced it. You do get B&Bs that offer discount long stays.

My grandparents ran boarding house in 1940s and 50s. Different to today's hmos

If you charging 9000 you need to pay tax on 1500
self-assessment.icalculator.com/guides/rent-a-room-relief.html#:~:text=Rent%20a%20room%20example&text=As%20the%20annual%20rent%20of,tax%2C%20which%20is%2020%25.

Where do you get 9k from? This says 7500
https://www.gov.uk/rent-room-in-your-home/the-rent-a-room-scheme

There are hardly any landladies of old anymore.

I went to a funeral a few years back and found out the woman had been a landlady and had had so many interesting lodgers over the years with lots of interesting stories.

I think it's because nowadays women don't live in houses too big for them anymore. Bigger houses were relatively cheap in the 20th century.

I think there should very more publicity about the £9k tax free you are allowed to earn from a lodger. It's a very good way for women to earn money.

We have often had lodgers. It’s still a thing. They’ve been a variety of ages. The only difference from a boarding house I can see is that in a boarding house you’d expect meals to be provided for you and also a communal sitting room.

Well within the last 10 years I spent 2 as a lodger and 4 in an HMO (house of multiple occupation). It’s still a thing!

there is a private hotel in the seaside town near me
i am interested what that is - i guess it is long term stay

we had lodgers when i was a teenager
i think my dm cooked and we sat down together as far as i can remember,
must have been awkward

Whilst I see the benefits, I cannot see it happening. There are more things in modern society especially with technology that make it difficult to co-exist with strangers, and for those prepared to accept that, I expect Air BnB type short term arrangements can make more money.

Housing and house shares already exist for students and young people.

For those struggling to pay their mortgage, would they have the space to let out a secure room in their house and the time to cook them breakfast/dinner and clean up?

These days, you’d probably need insurance, food hygiene certificate and checks, plus presumably DBS checks if you had kids in the house.

I think this might have worked in the 50s with a woman living in a large house who was a good cook and didn’t go out to work (so had time) trying to increase the household incomes by utilising spare bedrooms. I’m not sure it translates to many people’s lives now. The old big boarding houses near the sea are all flats now!

I think very few people want to live like that nowadays.

DH boarded when he was a PhD student with a couple for a year. It was a very grand house and sounds like the woman was definitely suffering from empty nest syndrome and had three students lodgers and they were very spoilt apparently. He said it was the best place he ever lived when young. Her DS had moved overseas and as this is about 32 years ago there was no FaceTime and phone calls were horrendously expensive overseas back then.

Also Monica Dickens wrote about her experience in a boarding house in My Turn To Make The Tea.

Have you read ‘Paying Guests’ by E. F. Benson - who also wrote the Mapp and Lucia series.
A very light and funny read - and probably available for peanuts if you’ve got a Kindle.

I'd call that digs too but no idea where I learnt the term. I lived in a room like that for the last year of my A Levels with two students and the landlady did some laundry and left breakfast out too. You weren't allowed in the lounge, just the kitchen and dining room. It was a bit depressing but was a good halfway house at just turned 17.

It’s a shame they no longer exist-I remember a post on here from a mum of a highly intelligent autistic son who struggled to cope with day to day living. A boarding house would have been perfect.
Thibking about it the landlady would have to pass stringent health and hygiene rules nowadays to cater for residents -might be why it’s out of fashion.

Weren't boarding houses holiday accommodation in places like Blackpool?
One step up from b&b as guests would also get an evening meal. I'm sure I've heard that once breakfast was over guests were expected to leave the premises until it was time for the evening meal, whatever the weather was like.

Like digs? Or a HMO (house of multiple occupancy) The difference between a HMO and a shared house is that an HMO has individual locks on the bedroom doors, and might also have room numbers- HMOs are very common.

If you are talking about HMO where meals of provided, I would call that a motel.

Thinking about boarding house novels, quite a lot of the ones I've read end up with the house catching fire, which suggests that this was a common worry and explains (and makes me appreciate) the stricter HMO regs of the present day.

I can very particularly think of a book/episode of Poirot (though the place is described more as being a hostel but fits the above description) where it turns out that the owner/landlady is involved in making the students living there smuggling things in rucksacks they've bought, without their knowledge.

Edit: I see someone already mentioned Hickory Hickory Dock as an example. Great minds and all that! 🤣

If the house owner is living in the property I am not sure it falls under HMO regs. Lodgers are allowed, even encouraged. The problem is more likely to be the provision of “board”, which could bring you under hotel type regs.

Boarding Houses where food is also provided are less easy to set up now as you need food hygiene certificates etc so as someone else has mentioned some complexes for older people or those with special needs who need a bit of support might do this. However on a small scale for a homeowner like they used to it would now generally just be a lodger.

We had lodgers in our house for about four years after my husband was made redundant. It meant we could stay in our home and not have to sell. We had workers newly moved to the country, people relocating to the area, for a while someone who needed a place Mon - Thursday as he didn’t want to relocate family but had a job too far from the family home, only ever had two at a time max, our dining room was turned into their living room.

Pretty much this.
Years ago I took a job in a city I didn’t know. My employer arranged “digs” where a landlady & husband lived but rented out a bedroom or two on a daily rate. She also provided breakfast & an evening meal. Shared bathroom and we paid a small bit extra for a daily hot bath because the immersion heater had to “go on!”
I suppose now I’d be called a lodger except I had no access to cooking or food facilities. I went home every Friday for the weekend.
It was lonesome. I was glad to move out. 🥹

A boarding house would be, in my mind, like the home the mother runs in Forest Gump?

A shared house is people of the same age/background.

A lodger to me is one room in a house and can be of any age.