Rent a Room in our House

[msgumby]

debt - i'm guessing they could find something, but it's probably not likely. There is a lot of housing in the area, but most come with 6 or 12 month leases (or charge a lot for the privledge of a reduced lease). I know my company did this last year for their interns (and also for an office-exchange or two). If they did want to live elsewhere, I don't think we would have a problem with that - but it is useful to think about. Because as we aren't counting on the money for anything, I don't think we would have a problem being flexible about that. On the comings and goings - I was assuming they would be a bit more stranded because of not having a car. While we are quite near public transportation, you would have a 20-30 minute walk plus 30-60 minutes on a train before you got anywhere too interesting. I assumed that most weeknights they wouldn't want to stay out till all hours of the night because by the time you have a round-trip excursion, you don't have time to do anything...

[ty]

Apr 27, 2011 15:28:51 GMT -5 msgumby said:

Kreepy - I guess I'm a bit less worried because this is someone my company has interviewed, reviewed references for, and decided to bring on for an internship. My company only hires a few interns each summer, so they are generally well-vetted. And in previous cases have turned into permanent employees. Having met our previous interns, they were all great people and not likely to cause any of those types of problems. We also don't really have much in the way of "items" to steal - they could make off with a few movies we got on sale. We have a safe where we keep our important documents. While there is no guarantee that anyone wouldn't steal, in this situation, I don't think it's a very high likelyhood of happening.

What's on paper is one thing, what's ticking I their head and their private and personal life is a whole different story.

Never judge a book by it's cover, or the paper trail they leave you for the trap.

Great films below. Shows just how easily people are fooled into renting to psychotic people

[whoisjohngalt]

I guess I'm a bit less worried because this is someone my company has interviewed, reviewed references for, and decided to bring on for an internship.

One thing has NOTHING to do with another. A perfect employee can be a HORRIBLE roommate.

Lena

[debtheaven]

Gumby, one last comment.

Do you live near a college or university? If so, I'm guessing those are the people that will have taken out six- or 12-month leases, and they will be looking for people over for the summer to sublet from them. And possibly get closer to "the action", or even just closer to the public transport.

I know that's what my own kids want. My kids are very hard workers, but when they did / do internships, they want to have fun there too, and get to know new people and new places. And their idea of fun isn't living with a version of their parents (albeit a much younger one ) or far from public transport.

I can only speak for my own kids. (I have four. One finished his masters last June and is working, the other is currently doing his masters. They did a bunch of internships, especially DS1. The other two kids are younger, DD starts college in Sept and DS3 is in MS.)

[debtheaven]

ETA: I also want to second Rileyday's comment ... this is the last time you and your DH will have an empty house for, um, at least 18 or 19 years Gd willing. More if you have more than one child.

Yes it's always nice to have additional income, but since you don't really need it, do think about that! It's a very precious time, waiting for your first child. Is having a roomie and making this extra money really worth it? Only you and your DH can decide.

(Karma to Riley for his / her wise comment).

[msgumby]

Riley - I do value your comment about the last alone time we would have. I hadn't thought about that too much, and that definitely will be taken into consideration.

whoisjohngalt - I do agree that a perfect employee can be a horrible roommate, but I don't agree that one thing has nothing to do with the other. In general, I think reasonable, responsible, normal people are less likely to have any of the major roommate problems (identity theft, destroying the house, being entirely unreasonable about the living situation) - which would leave us with the more minor roommate problems (cleaning up, living arrangement, etc...). And also (from my limited experience) most of the times these more minor problems turned into more significant problems were when the parties didn't communicate they were having problems. I've mostly seen issues where XXX wasn't cleaned, but instead of asking for the person to clean XXX, they just get more and more upset about their cleaning habits. Maybe it's just because I'm in an engineering field, but I've found that most times if I have a rational, logical conversation with a reasonable person, it's not too hard to come up with a compromise - especially for only a few months.

debt - you may be right that they would rather live elsewhere. I just assumed that because they asked for housing they would want it. But, it can be easy to change your mind at that age . I will definitely discuss with my husband if we would want any early termination conditions in our agreement. At this point - I'm leaning towards just not worrying about it because we aren't really counting on them being there.

[whoisjohngalt]

I am not going to try to convince you that it's a bad idea. I hope everything works out, but you keep talking about this "reasonable, rational person" like it's a given. Your company wasn't given them any kind of tests to find out how "reasonable or rational" they are. Your company was screening them for their "work" abilities. Not the same thing at all!!!!

Good luck!

Lena

[msgumby]

whoisjohngalt - I guess the way we do our interviews, we tend to end up hiring people that are resonable/rational. All in all, I have great, coworkers, and while I can't guarantee they would be perfect roommates, I think I could make a 3 month living situation work with most if not all of them. When we interview, the person comes out for a full day and meets everyone in the group (so at least 10 people). We review their transcripts, call their references, etc... I've definitely seen a lot of bad interviews, but the people we ended up hiring have all been great. While my company does screen for their work abilities, we have sections of our interview records for how well they would fit in with the environment of the company, etc...

[whoisjohngalt]

OK, last post on this, and we'll have to agree to disagree. You can not POSSIBLY know any of the people you work with. Living with someone is a completely different thing, it just is.

And on a side note - I always laugh when people say "we check their references". Have you ever met anyone who would gave a reference name that would give them a BAD reference. The person would have to be a complete moron.

Look, it might be a great thing for you, all I am saying that I wouldn't rely on the fact that your company hired them as anything that significant. They might be great people who will make awesome coworkers and even amazing friends, but it doesn't mean that it will make them good roommates.

Lena

[zibazinski]

Well, I'm the one who will weigh in the other direction. We had interns with our business and they lived with us. We charged $75 a week and fed her(then a him) dinner. I had 2 young kids and she basically became part of our family. My kids still remember her with fondness. She came with her own car so gas wasn't an issue but we would have happily driven her to work with no extra money. She never had anyone over but she did go to Orlando for a weekend and came home burnt to a crisp even though i warned her that Florida sun was hotter than Ohio sun!!! She was fine. The boy I was less thrilled with and we stopped after that. I never claimed any rental income and I wouldn't now, either, unless I had to because the company paid me. Cash is king and considering how the "gubmt" pisses it away, I would have no qualms about not declaring it.

[msgumby]

we can agree to disagree - i'm fine with that.

As a funny anecdote on the references, at my undergraduate college almost everyone went to graduate school. This required getting three reference letters from teachers/etc... We weren't allowed to open the refernce letters that got sent off, but it was pretty common practice to ask for one more than you needed so you could read what they said about you. I had a number of friends who were unpleasantly surprised when they opened that extra envelop. It was apparently fairly common practice at my school to agree to write a letter for whomever asked, but to give their honest opinion - which might not really make it a recommendation letter. The unfortunate thing was that if the teachers just said no, these students could have asked someone else. At this stage in life, however, I do agree that at this stage in life it would likely be a different situation (this was just for a funny story).

[Angel!]

A few more thoughts from reading some of your responses - my nightmare of a roommate was a perfect employee, one of those that never missed a day of work & always did exactly what they were asked, college educated, etc. We could even sit down & talk to the guy, he was very nice & reasonable to talk to, just couldn't seem to follow through with anything that was discussed. I am aware that mine was a very unusual situation, so you probably won't run into what I did.

You said you have had roommates before - did you own the house & they rented a room, or did you all rent a place together? I am assuming you own the house now. Because I have lived with roommates before also & it is very different when they are living in your house & using your kitchen. When someone puts a ding in the wall of a place you rent, then you figure "oh well, there might go the deposit", but when someone puts a ding in the wall of a place you own, then it become "crap, now I have to fix it". If you aren't too worried about your stuff or your house, then it would be fine. But, I tend to kind of view my stuff as my stuff & be anal about things (especially when I was pregnant), so I hated when things got screwed up. One example that just came to mind - He also used to cut veggies up straight on the counter, which he had done several times before I happened to be in the kitchen when he did it & realize what he was doing. Our countertop now has dozens of knife marks in it - If it was a rental, I wouldn't care, but it is my house & now if I ever want those marks gone I have to replace the countertop.

Also, he left at the end of my second trimester, but my hormones & his presence still made me absolutely miserable. The third trimester was a breeze because his leaving took away all my stress.

[msgumby]

zibazinski - did you get to meet these people first? I think that's one of my biggest lingering concerns is not actually getting to meet them first and see what they are like. Do you have any advice on how to make it work out better? What was the (rough) age difference between you and the interns?

[msgumby]

angel - our other situations were all rentals. Neither my husband or I are particularily anal about those types of things (we've had personal belongings lost or damaged before and it's never bothered us), but you are correct that it's different if you own or jointly rent together. I'm not certain the protocol, but we may be able to ask for a small security deposit that could help in case something like that does happen (of course it wouldn't cover something too big).

[zibazinski]

Nope, first time I saw them was when they walked in the door. Probably 15 years or so. They are in college. I was married w/2 kids so early/mid thirties.

[Opti]

OP, I've rented rooms in the last 5 years from two different people.
The kitchen, refrigerator space, cabinet space can be an issue. If they don't have a car they will be buying food to cook most of the time and its much cheaper to cook your meals than nuke stuff in the
microwave so their cooking may not be as light as you intend.

If you have a home sharing organization in your area some of them
have agreements and/or points of discussion between potential roommates that can be helpful. My guess is your biggest issues might be the kitchen, timing laundry and things like that. I also think if they keep odd hours it will be between Friday night and Sunday.

Good luck whatever you decide.

[msgumby]

optimist - thanks for the advice.

[Deleted]

Lets see. I'll think of this more, but i can think of two things i can think of now...

Best to think of the 'rules' and expectations as much as possible ahead of time and be consistent ... much like kids. If you feel like making pancakes for breakfast one morning and offering them to everyone, make sure you either make it clear that its a one time thing, or realize that it can very easily fall into a pattern of you making everyone breakfast every day... etc. Its much harder to withdraw stuff like that once you start it, and is where bad feelings can pop up...

My husband and i are very secure in our relationship. We once had a 19 year old, 6 ft, long blond hair, foreign girl staying with us for part of the summer... She was pretty amazing and i loved her... but i never once thought anything of it, until a friend said... you let HER live in your house with you and your husband??... It still didn't bother me at all, but i did see what she meant... If you or your husband are insecure at all, if you think the possibliity of having a younger, buffer person of the opposite sex living with you could create any kind of tension/friction... i might opt out...

I think i'd be up front about a trial, or attempt to find a potential 'fallback' option... or at least find out from work what happens if it doesn't work... Just so you know ahead of time... I always think preparation and knowledge are helpfull... even though the worst rarely happens....

I'll try to think some more... but those were my first thoughts...

[Deleted]

I did NOT get the foreign exchange student this year. We took her on vacation with us, and i met her a few times for activities, etc... but we just did not click (she was also 16, and i felt too young for me...) and our personalities didn't mesh... and she went to another family... so it does happen sometimes...

[katkuddler]

I have a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house that I have rented out a room since my husband died many years ago. I run an ad that says "Mature, employed individual to share nice home." I get many responses and weed out anyone under 30. I am not interested in renting to an 18 yr. old kid with a minimum wage job at McDonalds. I check references but I also tell prospects that I have a relative in law enforcement (not true) and he will do a background check for me. I am comfortable with the thought that this scares away deadbeats and possibly criminals.

I get lots of men who are recently divorced, wife got the house, they just want a bed until they get back on their feet. I charge $300 a month, includes utilities, cable and internet. If they want to help with small repairs or yard work I adjust the rent or maybe cook a nice meal.

I live in a somewhat secluded area with no close neighbors. Sharing my house gives me added security along with extra income. I often take overnight or longer trips and would worry about having an empty house. I have been very lucky and met some very nice people.

[msgumby]

Thanks for all the advice and useful discussion on this topic. My husband and I had a good discussion about it last night, and we are probably not going to go for it this year. It mostly came down to wanting to have our privacy for our last few child-free months (and not have to be presentable in our common areas if we don't want to). I appreciate all the feedback and comments - it really helped us have a discussion that hit all the major talking points. Maybe we will be able to do this down the line, when we already have had to adjust our lifestyle to include wearing pants on the weekend .

[debtheaven]

I think you made the right decision, Msgumby.

If you do decide to rent later on down the road, I really like katkuddler's advice.