Re: Finding a pet friendly lodger

julie hickman — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:16:15 GMT

Wow thanks for the advice, its is really hard because what you put up with will anoy other people. My pets are quite well behaved as my boyfriend whom i live with is new to this pet lark so i try and keep on top of things. I will try these sites and hopefully find someone nice to help make things easier. Many thanks again for your advice x

Re: Finding a pet friendly lodger

Louise B — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:12:46 GMT

I used to rent out rooms in my house. At the time I had 3 dogs, 2 cats, 2 chickens, 3 rabbits and about 30 guinea pigs (only the dogs/cats lived indoors but the others had free range of the garden so it was made clear to the lodgers that the garden was off limits to them unless they liked/accepted the animals) and I had no shortage of lodgers so it need not be a problem. I did spend alot of time cleaning, etc though so that the house was not 'animally'. I found that having animals was what attracted quite a few people to the house. I obtained baby gates and put them up around the house so that the movement of the animals could be controlled. Every lodger got supplied with a baby gate for their bedroom door so that they could limit animal access to their bedroom but not have to keep the door closed.

I have also been on the other side of the fence though as a lodger in an 'animal' house and I have to be honest and say that I would be unlikely to lodge with somebody with animals again. The things that drove me mad were:

- House - soiling cats

- Unclean litter trays (preferably no litter trays)

- cats walking all over kitchen units and helping themselves to your food (off your plate as you eat it or as you prepare it)

- dogs begging/drooling/pawing you as you eat

- sofas covered in animal hair and / or stinking of wet dog

- people letting their dog/cat 'clean' the plates/saucepans/drink out of their coffee mug, etc

So, sometimes, having or wanting a lodger makes you have to look hard at actually how you live with your animals and view it from another perspective - its amazing what is perfectly acceptable when its our own animal but utterly repulsive when somebody else's does it The flip side is that there are people out their that won't mind all of the above but, having had those kinds of lodgers too, experience tells me that they tend to create their own mess so I tended to look for people that would have issues with the above but were animal lovers as this told me that they were likely to people I could live with.

Finally, unless you are uber tolerant I would avoid renting a room to somebody that comes with their own animal(s). It invariably comes with problems - either because they don't look after the animal properly, or they have different expectations about how the animal should behave or their animal and your's won't get on. In my experience other people's animals will cost you financially!

Having said all that, largely I found having lodgers very rewarding and made some good friends. Almost all of mine were long term as well so the money came in handy!

I have used the www.spareroom.co.uk site too and found it good. I also used www.easyroommate.com and found this okay. I found flatemateclick (something like) useless. If you are veggie or vegan you could also add a listing on www.veganvillage.co.uk/notices or on www.vegcom.org

Re: Finding a pet friendly lodger

julie hickman — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:59:50 GMT

Thanks will give it a whirl x

Re: Finding a pet friendly lodger

Claire Cameron — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:27:40 GMT

Hiya

try www.spareroom.co.uk

I was looking to house share early last year and its a brilliant site, you can advertise your room on there and mention about the zoo you have