Has anyone every actually done a house-swap?

[sydneybound]

We live on the edge of Ilkley Moor (have named-changed in order to be so specific about address but about 6 of you probably know who this is oh well never mind) and will spend August in Sydney where DH has to go "forge links"(as it were) with University of Sydney. DH has been given £2000 total -we've two DSs so £2000 won't get us far!

House-swapping would be the obvious solution. Has anyone ever actually managed to do it? which agency did you use? Did it take ages? Did it work out ok?

Yes but only with friends / friends of friends. It was totally fine.

There was a good article about this in the Guardian a while ago I'll have a look for you.

Not a swap as such, but I house-sat for another mumsnetter with my DD a few years back- it worked out very well.

My friend did one with a family from France, both families had a great tim, she just did it over the internet

not for me, and she was abit stressed the week leading up to the holiday

Yes there is that - you want to leave your house spotlessly clean, a pita when you are doing the packing, preparing etc.

Agree that it is the housework beforehand that would put me off.

We did it 9 yrs ago with family in florida
we used homebase holidays

everything went well , we exchanged cars as well.
the cleaning is a pita but worth it I think

I did one last year via the houseswopping section on here (under Classifieds)
To be honest, although obviously it saved on hotel costs I'd never do it again.

The few weeks before was very stressful, lots of worrying about what we were doing letting strangers into our house and also the cleaning factor. We'd not been in our house for 4 months before the date of the swop as we live/work abroad most of the time so DH flew 3,000 back to the UK just to tidy up and clean and it still wasn't good enough for the swoppers apparently who sent a rather rude email afterwards. Never again.

spotlessly clean? Yikes! That'll be the day. I mean we have cleaners in weekly so it's not as though there'd be a dirty loo - but the kitchen is old old old (we are waiting for it to come back into fashion ).

Hmmm, I guess we would have to be pretty clear about what we were and were not offering:

offering;
staggering views
one of England's best locations
walking distance into Ilkley town centre
private gate on to Ilkley Moor's best bit
5 bedrooms two of which used as offices, three of which are huge
very extensive book collection
beautiful proportions and period features
10 minutes to train station
south-facing garden
3 parking spaces
cheap piano and cello that people can tinker on (not valuable)
friendly neighbours with kids.
dog heaven

in return for which you put up with:
old kitchen papered with grubby and quite grimy wallpaper and with ancient lino flooring
quirky layout
basement flat beneath so occasional noise
single oven that gets a bit smelly
two rooms not really decorated.
gaps in floorboard
drips in little loo's ceiling
damp marks under little loo from ceiling drip

I know I'd go for it, but perhaps that's why I bought it!

This is a bt late, but I'm a real advocate of home exchanges. We did loads of them when I was a kid, and it was always good fun (and the only time the house really got cleaned). Your house doesn't have to be pristine. If you swap with a family, theirs is likely to be equally scuffed.

We had a couple of problems (one lady pranged our car, but then we'd killed off a couple of her pet terrapins).

You could look at the website 'sabbatical homes' - they do short term rentals as well as swaps.