Would you put your spare room on air bnb?

[EachandEveryone]

We are twenty minutes from Central London. My friend and I are sick of looking for flatmates and would quite like a break from living with other people! What do you think to letting out the spare bedroom?

[larant]

I have put people up on couchsurfing. It is as risky/non risky as air bnb. You may not charge hotel prices, but many do charge the same price as b and bs who also give cooked breakfasts.

I know there are stlll people around with the old air bnb ethos. But I think they are becoming fewer in number.

[larant]

Also decent b&b owners chat to you, give you maps, and tell you where to go. I am actually staying in one at the moment. It is £50 per night for a lovely room, and the owners are very helpful and friendly.

Old air bnb ethos of course was much more than that. But still something you find when couchsurfing.

[RockinHippy]

Shamelessly place marking as this is something I've looked into recently,

We are not ready yet, but should have spare rooms in a popular city by the sea, plus we are a very short walk from all the sights, so it looked like it might be a good idea

It's very interesting to read all your experience & advice, good to know you have quite a bit of control over things as I was worried about booking say stag if hen guests by mistake - thank you

[rockybalboa]

Lovestea: thank you. I am very pleased that we are already doing all the things you list, hurrah! Lots of people come here to walk and I spent some time with our current guest going through various walk books and maps (which we provide) to help her decide how to spend her day. She's only our second guest but we did the same with the first inc recommending places to get dinner and they really appreciated. Providing tea and biscuits on arrival and making small talk feels almost essential when people are paying to share your home.

Each: don't think it has been moved yet. Did we reach a consensus on which topic was best? Self-employment? Or one of the travel ones?

[riverboat1]

Very interesting thread, I don't think we have the right house layout for letting out our spare room but it is worth bearing in mind for the future. OP, I look forward to hearing how it goes with your month-long guests!

[lovestea]

Rockybalboa, sounds like you are doing a great job! Suggesting restaurants is a great idea and something we do too.

It would be good to have this thread as a topic as it's really nice to share some of our experiences and suggestions!

[BeccaMumsnet]

Hi everyone - we'll move this over to Self-Employed now. Apologies for the delay.

[rockybalboa]

Marvellous, thanks Becca.

[lovestea]

Well, last night we had an unwell guest. She and her friend had walked a 10 mile stretch of a nearby river with heavy backpacks and by the time she arrived she had a terrible migraine and was vomiting.
I felt so sorry for her as she holed up in our room with the curtains closed and a sick bowl.
Her friend went out for dinner but she couldn't face it and all I could do was offer her drinks and some crystallised ginger. She had her migraine meds with her and by this morning was looking a whole lot better.

[EhricLovesTheBhrothers]

Oh dear!
Last night I had a single man (broke my rule because he was staying literally overnight and left at 7.30. For some reason he brought out my maternal side and I made him a cup of tea and toast I don't normally do that! I swear he was older than me too. Still it should warrant a good review

[rockybalboa]

Oh no to ill guest but well done on your nursing care! I'm not looking forward to tomorrow, busy day of activities planned and got to turn the room round between guests, still only having one set of towels! I'm bored of ironing bedding now, never ever do it normally. However, it is all good money so I shall persevere...

[lovestea]

rocky, I never iron anything! The sheets are fitted, so that does tend to make the wrinkles flatten out, and I put a full sized cotton throw over the duvet so the wrinkles show less.
No one has ever said anything and it's never been mentioned in numerous reviews.
Give yourself a break!

[EachandEveryone]

I really need to get a pair of thermal curtains I'm worrying about winter. Anyone seen any cheap ones?

[EagleRay]

Sounds like we are all having a bit of a time of it Airbnb-wise! Glad your guest has perked up a bit Lovestea.

Rocky - I tried ironing the bedding once and that was it! What I do now is iron the pillowcases and then put a nice throw over the duvet to smooth it out and add some colour.

We are having a rather mad evening here - somehow we have ended up with 5 people staying plus we are having a party here tomorrow. I can't remember the last time I was so close to a nervous breakdown! We had two guests arrive yesterday - a really sweet couple who have made themselves at home in a courteous way (DP reckons the guy is a dead ringer for Truman Capote).

Then tonight we had 3 generations of Chinese women arrive for two nights. They're driving around the UK together - daughter had just graduated in the UK and mum and granny are over here visiting for graduation ceremony and grand tour of the uk. I feel we are verging close to Fawlty Towers scenes - mum and granny don't speak a word of english and they've all turned up here starving hungry. I assumed they would be fine with a local Chinese takeaway as could have something familiar but no it turns out they're sick of Chinese food and so me and DP have had to quickly rustle up a load of 'English' snacks for them to try. I did get one thing right though - managed to get some Chinese language local tourism guides for them to read

So at the moment me and DP are hiding in the lounge having a sit down and knocking back wine then I will head out there again to try and get the kitchen cleared up and to do their laundry (oh yes, they're not backwards in requesting things!)

I honestly don't think I could take any more bookings this year - I feel a bit worn out by it all now. In recent days, we've had enquiries/bookings from a German woman on a driving tour, a musician on tour from the US, and a Mexican girl who will be doing a 2 month internship over the winter. I will probably have to learn to say no a bit more often!

[lovestea]

Blimey EagleRay, that's a house full! There is no way I could cope with five guests, snacking and laundry! You are so stoical and must have a hell of a lot of energy and a good sense of humour.
I am also going to have a bit of a break from it all in September. There are only three nights in July when we are not booked and although that's great I need a few evenings sat in my living room in my nightie drinking wine and not concerning myself about the guests.

The thing I find most time consuming, and I don't know if you find this as well, is the detailed requests for directions. Not the 'how do I get to your house from the rail/bus station?' but the 'I'm landing at Heathrow at 6am but may come to you via seeing a friend that lives in Reading, which buses do I take and where is the bus stop?'.
The other thing that takes time is replying to requests when the potential guests have not read the listing properly. No, we prefer guests not to cook in our kitchen but you can use the microwave and prepare cold food. I am asked about this all the time.
We once had a request from a woman in Santa Monica who asked if we would mind going out for an hour every evening as she would need privacy to make a meal for herself. Hello, read our listing!
Ive done laundry once for a sweet Australian couple who were on a grand tour of Europe, but as we have a limit of a four day stay I have not really needed to for anyone else.
Tomorrow we have two guests coming in for a wedding. They will be early arrivals but I doubt that we shall then see them again until the following morning.
We love having all these varied guests from so many different countries!

[EagleRay]

I never wanted 5 guests and feel a bit silly that we ended up this way - started off with a double room, but realised it would make a good triple on the listing as it's a big room and has a sofa bed as well as double, so then ended up with lots of triple bookings as they are quite hard to come by. Then I set up the second room, but envisage it being used more as a single room (although still a generous double). Then when the double bookings started coming in, I forgot to check for overall numbers for each night we had guests. It's not the end of the world - it's a fairly big house and we have got 2 bathrooms, but it's just the 5 of everything we have to find!

I'm quite tired now but have to stay up until the dishwasher has finished so that I can prepare the breakfast stuff, and also one of our guests has just come downstairs (finally!) with the requested laundry and that's just gone on, and looks like I will have to stay up now to hang it up.

It's a bit like a stage performance at times, isn't it? It's about putting on your best front for the guests, and making sure the worst bits of the house are hidden from view (we keep our lounge door permanently shut as EVERYTHING gets chucked in there in the panicky build up to new guests arriving.

When I was camping recently, I was talking to the site owner about b&b as they were doing it at their house for several years. The guy was very well-spoken, retired, etc then he says to me 'and what I really struggled with when guests are staying is that you can't just shout 'FUCK!!!' in your own house any more!'

Yes, I feel your pain regarding directions and questions. I have very detailed directions on the listing but they are usually ignored! And as for reading the listing... I have a set of things that I constantly raise with guests when they book to ensure they fully understand what they are booking. I'm a bit vague about kitchen use - I actually hate the kitchen being used as it's yet another room in the house that we have to constantly keep clean and tidy. I suppose the frank answer is that I don't mind guests that I warm to using the kitchen, but the more tricky guests definitely not! It just starts to feel invasive as there's no escape.

It's great meeting people from every corner of the world isn't it! There are challenges of course, and I do moan a bit, but it mostly comes from an anxiety to ensure everyone is comfortable and happy while so far from home. And I think it would be so much easier if I was a natural at keeping the place neat and tidy, but we have a toddler and the house is old. It has enabled me to get off the corporate treadmill for a bit though and an excuse to buy lots of random shit to decorate the rooms and I'm very grateful for that

[EhricLovesTheBhrothers]

Omg lovestea the cheeky mare!
I don't mind guests using the washing machine if staying longer but they do it themselves and they get given an airer to hang it on! Although I had a couple from Hong Kong here for a week, on the 2nd day they asked to use the machine, I was a bit surprised they had generated enough laundry but showed them how. The following day I came in and the machine was in again, with about 5 things in. I had to lay down the law as it seemed they were planning on using it daily to wash their things from the day before they were quite young, possibly their parents or even maids did the laundry for them at home!

[EagleRay]

My washing machine finally broke down last night, after staying up til 2am to get it to finish

[EhricLovesTheBhrothers]

Oh bum! I had to replace mine last year, it was knackered anyway but I do consider it a hosting expense! Like the tumble dryer and dishwasher and new beds

[Melonfool]

Dun Elm for cheap curtains.

dp stayed in an Airbnb in Edinburgh s few weeks ago when he was on a stag do. (I saw someone said they don't allow anyone on stag do). It was c£60 compared to the £150 for the hotel the best man had booked for everyone. He was back there and in bed, on his own , by ten thirty. So they're not all bad.

[Melonfool]

Re expenses, if you are paying tax you can offset expenses (washing machine I expect would only be a proportion of it), but obviously not if you're not.

Some of you must be paying tax if you have numerous people and are full most of the time.

[EagleRay]

Thank goodness for AO - ordered new machine off their website before I went to bed last night.

DD woke up crying just after midnight and after numerous stories being read to her, it was clear she wasn't going to settle so reluctantly put her in our bed. Have spent the night with all the lights on (she shouted at me every time they went off) and I nearly fell off the edge of the bed a couple of times. Ah well - at least it was a short night

[cedricsneer]

Hi, can I join you? We bought a flat in December and have been up and running for a couple of months now - back to back bookings (in a very popular tourist city). I realise it is different as we don't live on site, but similar issues come up (found a guest and stolen the hairdryer yesterday ).

So far the majority of guests have been lovely, but it's quite hard keeping up with changeovers during the summer!

[EhricLovesTheBhrothers]

Blimey melonfool talk about banging the drum!

We all understand the concept of the rent a room scheme and our obligations to hmrc. Give it a rest yeah?

Personally although I've been really busy this summer, this is the second summer I have been doing it and last year was v quiet so possible airbnb has taken off more in the last 12 months? I was nowhere near the personal allowance last year and I doubt I will be this year. Next year as the allowance goes up so much I'm not worried about that either.

[EachandEveryone]

Bloody hell our landlady got us a new shower put in yesterday it runs from the taps. The old one was so powerful it nearly took your eye out. We had to have a new curtain rail put in that goes the length of the bath so I'm sure she thought she was doing us a favour by replacing the shower. It looks fantastic but the minute you put it up in its holder it loses all pressure. Gutted. We will get marked down for that.