Taking a lodger when you have kids

[Iwouldaificoulda]

I am considering getting a lodger and would appreciate the help of those more experienced and knowledgeable than me. I live in an area with a big university and a big hospital, so I'm hopeful that there will be the demand. I have sorted the room and made it comfortable for someone to live in (as well as considering kitchen cupboard and fridge space). However, I have 3 young children and I am keen to think through everything I should to make sure that it is set up safely and thoughtfully, for everyone's benefit. I'm keen to hear any advice from anyone who has had lodgers.

Thanks so much

I think the only way you can actually make it safe with three young kids is to not have a lodger. For me the risk would be too high.

Or, obviously, although I regret the implied hurt to politically correct sensibilities that will ensue…
get a woman as a lodger, not a man

I know a few people at church who have loaders with kids, they’re usually younger women that they know through the church. I guess that’s less risky than just putting an advert out.

The problem is even if you have a female lodger I don’t know if you can control what men they might bring into the house.

Is there any way you could give them a room on the ground floor? Rather than upstairs with everyone else’s bedrooms.

I have had 4 lodgers now and it’s all about getting the right person. I have always gone on gut instinct and always had females (I have 2 DDs), taken references etc. I didn’t have them when they were really young though. Probably 9 and 12. I have never had any issues. It’s a great way to earn some extra income and they have all been lovely . Just be clear when you meet them about the overall ‘vibe’ of the house. So I say now (for example) I have 2 teens, sometimes they have friends round and play music in the living room, or ‘I always ensure the place is clean but it’s not always this tidy.. clothes around the place etc’ .. if it’s not for them then that’s fine as you probably wouldn’t have been the best match anyway. The right person won’t mind.

I do charge a bit less than market rate for my area (the midlands) to compensate for this. I also say that I don’t want any random men staying overnight. If they have a partner I have said ‘occasional overnight stays are ok but as a rule I’d prefer it if it didn’t happen that often. My DDs are older now though - again I don’t know if I would have done this when they were younger and I have only ever had one who had her BF stay over once a month or so.

We had lodgers but when we didn’t have our children so a bit different. I would say go for a quiet, respectful female and impose a restriction on visits. Also, charge a little less.
Will she be sharing a bathroom?
I personally wouldn’t do it as my home will not feel like mine anymore and with young kids, you’ll have added pressure to keep them quiet early mornings and keeping them out of her room.. etc.

Most lodgers will want a single person the same sex as their live in landlord, most people who work in a hospital and Uni students will go out for a drink and want to bring people over from time to time, just not compatible with a young family unit really.

I’ve had lidgers and younger children

many hospital staff will have dbs anyway, my last lodger got a dbs. He was a uni student on placement

I never take a deposit, if you do for a lodger it must go in the schrme
i do allow to have their own fridge and cupboard in kitchen snd they can use the lounge ( one female lodger I had, her previous lodgings was kitchen bedroom and bathroom only

i make some rules clear from the off - no cooking in kitchen after 9pm, we are a very calm household so loud conversations on phone after 10pm won’t be acceptable.

I only charge by the night, so if they want Monday to Thursday I only charge for 3 nights but if they are ant 7 nights then they pay for 7

no visitors allowed, I’m insured for lodger but not strangers ( I made it up) it works. So tell your insurance company.anyway as they do need to know.

if you have full time student, they don’t count for council tax

oh and we sort out bathroom times for the morning but afternoon evening is ad-lib

I had lodgers pre-children. I would never do it with dc. It's things like the leaving things around they can't have, bringing other people home, the DC bothering the lodgers too much. You can never relax in your own home. I'd find other ways to make some money, maybe rent as storage only? Rent the driveway for parking?

It’s a massive risk to be honest and you have to be realistic a lot of single people looking to be a lodger might not want to share with 3 young kids, then there’s a chance you could be brining a nutter in to the house!!

id think really seriously about this - I don’t think I would personally

I had a lodger for a while when I had 3 kids aged between 7-12. I would have only had a female lodger. It was fine. She was on a short-term contract locally and I charged less than most rooms in the area. She left for work early before my kids were getting ready for school.

The kids weren't really very keen on the whole concept though, which was why I didn't get another lodger when she left.

we have had boarders staying in our home whilst our kids were growing up. We had boys and I was careful (esp as they grew to teens) that we didn't get girl boarders. Also didn't leave boarders with the kids. Having said that, most were of the good sort tho the odd few (emphasis on "odd") who were out to "educate" my boys on girls, dirty websites etc. So do be careful. Also wouldn't do men if you have girls. You can neva be too careful.

I used to host students from language schools when my DC were younger. They were safe to have around the DC and only stay a few weeks at a time. If you’re not happy with them then they will re house them or if a student wasn’t happy elsewhere then I’d get a call to house them asap. The only one I didn’t like was when they persuaded me to take on one of the teachers who came over and she was an annoying PITA. They mainly did their own thing so weren’t around much and just had breakfast and dinner at home which you could pre prepare if necessary and they could just heat it up or stick it in the oven etc. half the time they’d just eat out after their lessons with other students.

Not sure many people would rent a driveway or store their stuff in someone else"s home?

Yep, and if they are aware of the laws around lodging could they overstay their welcome? Watch Cape Fear (The re-make with DeNiro in the main part) for a taster.

Lodgers have very few rights under uk law. You can evict them by giving "reasonable notice" (usually matching your rental payment period, such as 7 days for weekly rent or 1 month for monthly rent). Safeguarding training will tell you a dbs just means you havent been caught yet but women are always less risk than men. With a hospital nearby you will maybe get young doctors doing a years rotation whose partner will be living miles away and wont be bothering you often. They may need to arrive and depart at unsocial hours and you need to have realistic discussions about noise, including noise of showers and cooking.

A student wanting to be a lodger rather than in hall is not a typical student and may be glad to be in a family environment.

Many people who struggle to find a parking space close to where they work would rent a driveway.

Young doctors more likely to share a flat with other young doctors where they can shower when they like and have nurses over to visit when they like. The problem with "lodgers" is that the person seeking lodgers is usually just trying to cover a too big mortgage,there was a spike when interest rates first started to go up, they are not really interested in the other person other than as an income stream. "Lodging" is from a bygone era (the 70"s) when people interacted differently, many people just live inside their phone now, they are not going to gel with a young family unit and respect the boundaries IMO, what self-respecting phone drone doesn"t make loud performative phone calls after 10pm for example?

Not me but a friend does this and has a daughter of 12, she's a single mum.

Horrors have included a bloke going in her room when she was at work and listening outside the door when she was on a phone call ( i couldn't believe she was letting single men lodge, she no longer does) and a very troubled woman who tried to kill herself whilst my friend's child was in the house. Social services were informed.

Vet carefully!

I have hosted lodgers for 25 years including when my children were small. It helps that we have a downstairs bedroom and bathroom for rent.
No lodgers upstairs.
For a number of years we had Spanish students from those local university who came for an academic year as part of their studies.
We also had students from a local boarding school who did not return to their home for holidays.
Now I only work through an agent. They attend a local language school. If there is any issue the agent will move them. It has come full circle as I now have a 2 year old living with us.

Thing is a DBS will be clear if they haven’t offended or been caught yet. You don’t know a young adult is safe because they might just not have had the opportunity to harm a child.

Mon-Friday lodgers can work well as they have a home and life elsewhere they just need to be in town to work, equally a student doctor on a 3 month placement

We had a Mon-Fri female lodger for over two years. Our kids were early teens. It was great, no probs at all.

I grew up with a rotating cadre of lodgers from all over the world. We were 10, 11 and 16 when it started. My mother was divorcing my father and she needed the extra income. I would say for the first 3-4 years it was only girls/women. Then after that the occasional man.

My general memories were very positive. They often came to us quite young and part of the deal was that they got to eat dinner with us so we always had a full table and fascinating discussions, we had Indian, Iranian and polish trainee doctors, a Russian researcher, Chinese language and stem students, European sixth-formers, a lovely guy from Yeman training to be a pharmacist supporting about 20 family members back home. An extraordinary young man from Vietnam who eventually ran away to become a monk...I could go on.

It was a bit annoying to be sharing a bathroom with 2/3 extra people but on the whole si of there is a way you could seperate your own kids from the lodgers I would do so but do long as you are careful it can be a lovely experience.

I had to have the student get a dbs, its not my choice but I had foreign nationals under 18 in the household.

Obviously the dbs doesn't show intent to commit crime, all it shows is a crime has (and been caught) or hasn't been committed in the past - that is the system

Sounds almost story book/TV show, everyone would enjoy that experience but the reality for most people will be a lot more grim, people with choices don"t kip in the back bedroom of a strangers house TBH and although I don"t know the time period you are talking about I will bet that the equivalent of those people now wouldn"t be able to stop touching their phone long enough to eat dinner with a random family, they will be in accommodation attached to the Uni/Hospital etc. more and more now where everything is done for them and they can just zone out on their phone between lectures/shifts.