Who’s rented out a room in their house before?
Question: Having a flight of fancy — “renting” out my guest bedroom in exchange for housekeeping, maybe some meal preparation, etc.
Anyone have stories, horror or no? What did you do to make sure you got a good person? Thanks all.
Answer: People tend to think that others are like themselves. And people who own homes tend to be responsible people.
With that said, people who own homes and want to rent out a room think they will find some nice responsible person to rent the room to…
But think about this a minute. Who are these people that do not own any furniture? Why don’t they have any personal belongings? Why can’t they rent their own apartment?
Possibly because they can’t hold a job. Maybe they have bad credit. Maybe they have a criminal record. Maybe they have a bad rental history. Poor handling of their personal finances. Etc.
With that said, these days professional apartment rental companies will run many different checks on potential renters before renting to them.
The way they look at it is they are renting/loaning the person a property worth upwards of $100,000.00. So they take the same care a bank would to be sure their investment will be well taken care of.
They verify employment and length of employment. They run a rental history check. They run a credit check. They run a driver’s license check. They run a criminal check. (Ask a local rental company how you can run these checks yourself.)
The rental check shows they paid their rent on time and left the property in good condition after moving out. The credit check shows they pay their bills on time. The driver’s license check shows they can follow the rules of society (would show tickets for speeding, DUI, etc.). The criminal check could reveal a person who uses/sells drugs or a dishonest person.
In my opinion and experience, it is more important to run these checks on people who are renting a room than someone renting an apartment or house. That is because they don’t have furniture and they don’t have the money to rent their own apartment/house. The question is WHY?
There ARE good responsible people out there who will pay their rent on time. But there are also many irresponsible liars who will lead you to believe they are the responsible types. And being the responsible homeowner you are, you would tend to think these people are like yourself! (Not!)
Then other than that, put it in writing what you expect of your roommate. That is food, cleaning supplies, watching TV in the living room, using your stereo and the volume level, etc.
Will you pay for all cleaning supplies? Will you pay for all kitchen condiments (salt, sugar, spices, ketchup, etc.)? Can they eat your food or not? Who will do the dishes/clean the kitchen? Perhaps leave the kitchen as you found it?
You will get along better with your future roommate if you work this all out ahead of time.
It does not matter what you agree to, just that you both agree to the same things. You might say they need to buy their own food, but the roommate can use all of your condiments. No problem if you both agree!
You may come home and want to watch the news on TV, but find your roommate playing the stereo at full BLAST! And the roommate gets mad when you ask that it be shut off so you can watch the news.
Etc. Be sure you can live with the person and come to some sort of agreement with these things. Sort of like being married or having a relationship. Better if you like to do the same things.
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