Landlords ..or tenants.. Renting out room or basement

If you don't have a separate apt in your home... Did anyone ever rent out a room or basement ?

Or were you ever a tenant in this scenario?
How did it work out?

Re: Landlords ..or tenants.. Renting out room or basement

the people who rented rooms in my home were either family of our old housemate or friends of his (we used to share the house).

I HATED IT! I would consider it only for my own family member or friend in need. but it would have to be a close friend.

Thing is...when someone is paying rent it's hard to tell them "i don't want random strangers in my home" we had girls bringing their boyfriends over and getting WASTED! One night a fight broke out and we heard her bf hit her. The men of the house got up and practically put the guy through a wall. This was at 2am on a week day! Then another girl had a daughter...she would bring random guys over right next door to her daughters room she would leave the house to go out and party and leave her child home like we were some sort of built in baby sitters. My house felt like some kind of college dorm. But we didn't have a family yet so we dealt for a bit until we just couldn't anymore.

Now it's just me, hubby and baby and it's so much more peaceful.

on the other hand my sis lived with me for over a year and she was a great tenant. She paid dirt cheap but she cleaned, helped cook, helped to buy necessities for the home etc.

Message edited 6/28/2013 10:48:22 AM.

Re: Landlords ..or tenants.. Renting out room or basement

I rented a room in a woman's house right after college. There was another girl in the bedroom next to me but since we both worked so much we only ran into each other maybe 4 times in two months. We shared a bathroom and the woman had her own. We each had our own cabinet and a shelf in the fridge. I wasn't able to get mail there and didn't have internet or cable. I watched movies on my laptop and the woman had dial up internet if I needed it (this was a while ago ) but I just used the computer at the library instead. I wasn't allowed to have overnight guests. One time I had a "friend" over (now DH haha) but she stayed up the entire time he was there.

It worked for the two months it lasted and was cheap and covered all the necessities. Let me know if there are specific questions you wanted answered but like I said it was a while ago and my only option so I just made do with what I had.

Landlords ..or tenants.. Renting out room or basement

I don't own my own house but I had a semi-similar situation I was renting a house with a friend, and we decided to save some money and rent out the attic space (the attic was a 2 room wood paneled area, not a crawlspace, lol). Because the guy that rented it was random, it did make for some uncomfortable living situations. Depending on your level of privacy, sharing everything can get really uncomfortable. I'm particular about my kitchen, there was a lot of overlapping of routines (ie: watching tv in the living room bc it was nicer than the one in his room, who uses the bathroom at what times, having friends over etc). We could have set some better ground rules, but I couldn't be a hypocrite either by doing one thing but not letting him do another.

I think it has a lot to do with whether you're renting the room to anyone for money, or to someone you know because they need a place to stay.