Houseswapping this summer?

[OnlyBejoking]

We haven't booked anything for this summer yet and prices for UK holidays are crazy.

I'm wondering if house swapping might be a good idea this year. Does anyone have experience of this? Any tips or suggestions for how to go about it?

We've done it (with a couple in New Zealand). They advertised locally, and got two responses, we were one of them. The NZ couple had done it a dozen times before. Foolishly the woman seemed so nice we didn't ask for any contact details of their previous swappers. I met the woman while she was staying in UK with family and she seemed fine. Met the weird husband the day before we left; no wonder she kept him under wraps.

The other local couple who swapped with them, had the same experience as us (at different times).. we left our homes spotless; arrived in NZ to find a huge booklet of detailed very fussy housecleaning instructions and orders !!!!! . When we came home we left their home immaculate; expecting ours to be sparkling and found it grubby, minor stuff broken and missing. Nothing drastic just v annoying. Since then. I've lent our house to trusted friends with no problems at all but it wasn't a swap; we were just happy to have it occupied while we were away.

Grubs apart, swapping was a brilliant way to holiday for an extended period. I would only do it again with someone I knew very well. There are houseswapping agencies but I have no idea how good they are at weeding out nuts.