Free accommodation. Is this a good deal?

[Jacaranda75]

I have an elderly relative who lives alone. Although she doesn't need care, we worry about the fact that there is no-one there at night, if she had a fall or something like that. The house is old and shabby but quite big and she has two rooms in the lower ground floor which are currently empty.

I had this idea that we could 'rent' out the two rooms to somebody in return for checking in on her twice a day. Just a, "are you OK Doris? Do you need anything from the shops?". And then once again at night. As well as that, just cleaning the communal areas (bathroom, kitchen) once a week.

I imagine someone who is in the country to work and save money, so is not around much during the day.

Has anybody done this? Any experiences you can share? Thanks.

Maybe but you'd want to vet someone REALLY well if they were living for free and expected to care for your elderly relative. Id be a bit twitchy about it.

I don't know how you'd vet them TBH, it could be a total nightmare! On the other hand, it might work really well.

There are agencies who place people in exactly these circs and vet them. Annoyingly I’ve forgotten what they are called (because my own lovely old mum died before we quite got to thinking about this!). Read good reports of eg postgrad students etc. No doubt someone will be along soon with info.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/03/young-person-live-older-person-cheap-rent-live-in-care

@MrsColon that sounds like an utter nightmare!

It can work and work well or it can be a total nightmare - house trashed, or people invited over who shouldn't be, or person trying to wrangle money out of your relative, or even trying to get relative to change the will.

Your relative might be better off with professional cleaners and a daily text from you.

I think most important is if your relative wants a stranger living with theem - the communal areas as you call them are her home!

I think there are agencies that can help you with this, or I would approach a university’s housing department.

I remember there being an ad in our housing section for a situation like this with an old man who could care for himself (so no food prep or personal care) but needed someone for light cleaning and a guardian as he was prone to falls. If wasn’t my cup of tea- but I can think of lots of quiet second year students who would have jumped at the chance of free rent and a lovely big room for ‘are you ok Ivor?’ and cleaning the bathroom bad kitchen. You’d be able to get necessary references from the university too and vet well- and they’d probably do the same to you as it would fall under their duty of care.

@Suprima yes that’s what I was thinking. She lives near a medical school so maybe a medical student. I imagine they spend a lot of time in their room studying, which would be perfect.

Someone we use for occasional babysitting has this arrangement with her landlord!
She is very obviously someone who wouldn’t be a risk/liability though - very religious (I think they know each other through church), tee total, 35 going on 75 sort of personality

So it can work but I wouldn’t have the first clue how you would go about trying to find someone, or what the legal position would be regarding kicking them out if anything went wrong