Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[Cate in NZ]

We're planning a trip back to the UK next year, my first trip back since we moved out here in June 08, & I'm busily trying to work out the arrangements. Problem is we're travelling as a family of 4 adults, so whilst we've had many offers of accommodation from friends & family I'm not sure that too many people would be able to accommodate us all comfortably or for long. So we're looking to book accommodation for the time that we're there. But 4 weeks in June is looking to be fairly prohibitive, besides which we will be wanting to move around a bit, from Kent and London, to Wales, Yorkshire and Manchester, with a few other stop offs en route....hence we're seriously considering a house swap, which would give us a base from which to move around.

I know there are a couple of websites that help with advertising and arranging swaps, & I intend to surf them carefully, but there's nothing quite like personal recommendations/ experiences to help point out the pros & cons. Has anyone in Omlet land got any experiences of house swapping?

I'd be very grateful for any opinions or advice to help me decide if this is worth seriously considering.

[beach chick]

we have done it in the past and will prob do it again...

 

we've only done it in the UK so far and we did ours via the NCT who had a register. great way to get a free holiday; plus know that your own house is looked after.

 

you do have to be quite trusting, and also accept that occasionally things do get broken/go wrong. you also need to be organised (provide instructions for things, local contact details for plumber etc etc etc).

 

the only downside I found was having to clean our house like mad before departure!!

[squiffs]

We're planning a trip back to the UK next year, my first trip back since we moved out here in June 08, & I'm busily trying to work out the arrangements. Problem is we're travelling as a family of 4 adults, so whilst we've had many offers of accommodation from friends & family I'm not sure that too many people would be able to accommodate us all comfortably or for long. So we're looking to book accommodation for the time that we're there. But 4 weeks in June is looking to be fairly prohibitive, besides which we will be wanting to move around a bit, from Kent and London, to Wales, Yorkshire and Manchester, with a few other stop offs en route....hence we're seriously considering a house swap, which would give us a base from which to move around.

I know there are a couple of websites that help with advertising and arranging swaps, & I intend to surf them carefully, but there's nothing quite like personal recommendations/ experiences to help point out the pros & cons. Has anyone in Omlet land got any experiences of house swapping?

I'd be very grateful for any opinions or advice to help me decide if this is worth seriously considering.

 

Make it and Mend it featured a guide to houseswapping in their newsletter this week - here!

[Cate in NZ]

Thanks for the responses, I'll definitely check out that link Squiffs.

I'm blowing hot & cold on the idea, there are some real benefits, it would be great to have a base while we're back in the UK rather than camping out with friends & relatives, or moving from hotel to motel to B&B & all the grief associated with continually moving around, and of course there's the advantages of having someone stay in our home. We might even find someone who likes sheep & willing to tickle their chins & top up their water for us whilst we're away. Our girls like a bit of attention!

But I'm not good at being trusting....I worry more about the potential for identity theft than actual theft if I'm honest...we'd move valuables to a friends' place for safe keeping & top up the insurance on everything else. But it's probably hard to disguise your identity when you're doing a swap, and of course we do still have established identities in the UK which could possibly be targeted and misused by someone with bad intentions. It's a bit scary. And the getting everything else spotless before the swap could be a challenge

Thanks for the input though...definitely given me a bit more food for thought.

[beach chick]

when we did it we put everything we were cautious about in our study, and kept that room locked - it was the only room that was 'out of bounds' so no issue at all. we also suggested that people did not let kids in our garage, full of tools etc, but also padlocked.

 

the thing is you do build up a relationship with your swappees beforehand, just through your communication with them, and having to discuss things like animal care etc etc, so you get a perception of them. some people are precious about different things tho - one lot were concerned that we had stone floors and they had a crawling baby, til I pointed out that my youngest was born here and crawled/learned to walk quite competently another insisted that they had to bring their own hairdryer so if we wanted to use one at theirs we would need to take ours... no problem!

 

most people seem to do nice things tho, like put together leaflets about all the local places of interest, directions to good shops, leave bread/milk/eggs/wine for arrival day, and a small gift on departure.

[Millihelen]

We've done it several times and are thinking of doing it again.

Before kids we swapped to Los Angeles, Germany and France (Nr Arles).

When the boys came along, we decided to leave it until they were old enough to be responsible around other people's belongings. That was quite a while because our eldest has ADHD!!

Then we did Florida, Edinburgh (twice for weekends), France (Paris) and Norway.

 

The only one that was a bit dodgy was the Paris swap. I think they were doing it because they couldn't afford a holiday any other way and their house was pretty dreadful. However, we had only planned to stay about 6 nights and then drive home slowly via Parc Asterix and the Normandy Coast. In the end, I think we stuck it for 4 nights!

 

For each swap we kept one bedroom back to dump our stuff in. We didn't bother locking it as we really don't have any thing of value. Its considerate to empty some clothes storage space so it was useful to have somewhere for all the bin bags! We set up a separate guest user account on our computer and locked personal papers in the filing cabinet. We swapped cars with the Americans and the Norwegians, but that can be a bit of a pain with insurance etc. We have also successfully swapped pet care. (haven't tried chicken swap yet!)

 

I would definitely recommend using a well established organisation. We used Homelink International. It costs something like £110 /year to join, but is worth it for peace of mind. They don't vet or arrange the swaps for you, but they do ask for feedback - so anyone dodgy gets flushed out. Also there is loads of advice on the website.

 

Sorry - I have gone on a bit about it! If you want more info or have specific questions I am happy to continue! Or you can pm me.