Has anyone ever rented out a room in their house?

[unicorn]

It is a possible consideration of ours (to help ease our mortgage worries), so any advice/stories (good and bad!)are welcome.

nobody considered it? (shameless bump!)

We did it - but rented it to family (dh's brother and his wife) - the money was good (there's a limit under the 'rent-a-room' scheme where you can get rental income for a room in your house without paying tax on it) and the inconvienence wasn't that bad.
It was a bit strange as sis-in-law doesn't like to speak english and so communication about simple house rules (putting rubbish out, not dead locking the front door when my dh hadn't come home from work etc) was a bit difficult.
Kids loved it..they were occasionally 'invited in' to BIL's room and were spoiled rotten, but we didn't feel that we could ask them to babysit, even though they were family.

Before i got married I was the 'lodger' in a family house and it was fine - am still very close to the 'mum' of the house. Separate shower room with loo really helped I think! And similar feelings towards what 'cleanliness' is.

Message withdrawn

Have emailed you, but in case anyone else is interested. I have rented out a room in my house here and did in my house in los angeles for years. I have had almost universally good experiences and met all sorts of interesting (and famous) people. The secret is to pick someone who has a lifestyle that doesn't coincide with yours. For example, in los angeles (I was single and without children at the time), I rented to aspiring actresses who were really pretty, home all day and never ate. I was out at work during the day, dated the non-beautiful people and cooked a lot. We co-existed wonderfully. Here in london, I generally rent to americans who are over here to study, work or be a tourist for a short (1 to 2 months) period of time. They are generally out all the time, never use the kitchen, or living room and are jetlagged so don't mind the kids coming in at 8am and jumping on their bed.
For the short term tenants, I supply everything and make the rent high enough to cover utilities. It's nice for them and me to have an all inclusive price. I also generally don't take a security deposit as they are in my house and I am able to keep an eye on them.

how about oversees students?

we live on the coast so we have spanish teenagers everywhere. i havent got an organisation name - but maybe google can help. its definatley something we are considering when the kids move out ( hopefully in 5 years time) i think you get £80 pw - but it is only in the summer and they are teenagers scorn of the devil.

Message withdrawn

I haven't rented a room out as such, but have had several member of dh's family stay over...
17yr old BIL for three months - nightmare, then again a year later for 3 months - still a nightmare.
24yr old BIL for 5 months - started ok turned into a nightmare when he was nasty to my little boy.
22yr old SIL - very very big nightmare after 2 weeks, lasted about 6 weeks altogether though she has been back since for 2 weeks and it was ok.

Moral: IME stay away from family, set some rules and make sure they know how important they are... and the advice about having someone with a different lifestyle makes sense to me.

Oh just remembered, I rented out a room to my sister's bf when he was 17 (he was made an orphan bless him ) and it went fine. Hardly saw him, he helped out with ds1 though I never expected him to, and paid me £20 per week and bought some shopping occasionally. It went fine but he moved out when he split with my sister as his family didn't think it was fair of him to put me in that situation.