The title pretty much says it all, but here’s some more background:
My wife and I could use a little extra money. We have a seven-month-old daughter, two older dogs, and full-time teaching jobs. We also have a spare bedroom in our house. Out of curiosity, I started to browse Craigslist to see if people want to rent rooms; it turns out that they do. In our area, it looks like we could get about $350/month for our spare room. All I’d have to do is move this computer and its printer out of the room, and it would be ready to go. $350/month is slightly more than our most expensive car payment, so we’d probably use it to double that payment and pay the car off.
Craigslist is no worse than another website, newspaper classifieds, etc. Just because it’s free and has a reputation for seediness in other sections of the site doesn’t mean that the apartment hunting section is bad. Check them out in person to make sure they don’t have a rapist vibe, then do the credit check if it makes you feel better.
I know a lot of perfectly decent people who find rooms on CL (I like to think I’m one of them) and seemingly great people offering rooms. However, most of the renters I met were young 20-somethings who probably want to live with other 20-somethings. They probably wouldn’t want to live with a family and a baby. So, you may be limited to people in their 30’s and up (don’t know for sure, as I haven’t tried). And I would be wary of a 35-year-old who has nowhere else to live and can only afford 350$ a month.
Then again, who knows? You can always put up an ad and see who turns up.
I voted no, but not really because of Craigslist. I just wouldn’t rent a room out to a stranger unless I was absolutely desperate. It would be my last resort. I’d sooner sell the car or move to a cheaper house. I’m very picky about my living situation and I don’t think I could be comfortable with a stranger living in one room of my house.
I will say that the few times I’ve sold something on Craigslist, the proportion of flakes and weirdos has been astronomical. No idea if that applies to the housing sections too.
One of the few times I rented a room, the woman had a baby. It’s horrible from the renter’s standpoint. You know how often you get the “I’m just gonna run to the 7-11 can you watch the baby, I’ll just be a sec.”
But as a site, CL is no better or worse than any other site. Just because one killer makes the news. Heck the papers are full of people getting killed by people they know.
Only way I would rent to a stranger is if the rental had a separate entrance and could be locked away from my residence. Basement with separate entrance and bathroom would be ideal [if the laundry and utility section could be locked down for my use/access.]
I have a horror of people rummaging through my stuff, I have been robbed by 2 ex roomies - one moved out while I was working third shift - I got home to find that except for furniture, kitchen stuff and clothing, I had been cleaned out [around 10K$US of game stuff, entire run of dragon magazine from #1-108, painted and unpainted miniatures, unopened playtest set of original D&D stuff from gencon and an opened test set from gencon, D&D original commercial set through AD&D books, modules and the like.] Second time the bitch stole most of my unopened and high end Magic the Addiction cards, as well as a bunch of other stuff. I was also burglarized by a total stranger once, only lost a semibroken TV set and a cheap stereo.
I lived in a group house all through law school, and so did most of my friends. Hell, half my friends still live in group houses. Are you near a law school or other graduate school? If so, it shouldn’t be hard to get a fairly responsible tenant in his/her late twenties/early thirties who needs cheap housing.
Be prepared for a lot of scammers to send you email about how they are about to move to the U.S. to attend college/seminary/police academy, and want to rent from you without seeing the room. They’ll gladly offer to send you some sort of grant check for above the amount and you can just cash the check and send them the remainder for travel expenses.
Or something like that. It’s been a couple years since we tried putting an ad on Craigslist. We had hundreds of replies within days. All of them scammers.
Still, if I was looking to rent a room from someone else, I’d consider using the site as long as it looked cool when I checked it out in person.
No, I would not but only because I do not want to live with strangers. However, I currently have a room for rent ad on Craigslist for my house in Orlando my son is living in. It has 3 extra bedrooms he is not using and he would like roommates and the extra money.
I plan to retire there so at some point I will have to ask everyone to leave.
If you do this I would suggest posting the room as a ‘short-term rental for professional’, or some other wording that will attract some busy person who needs a temporary second home. You’d be surprised, lots of people end up in that situation, like people who are relocating and waiting for their spouse to follow, or have to take a contract job in another city and just don’t want to relocate. People like this are more likely to want to just write a check and stay out of your hair. And have you stay out of their hair.
Anyhow, I would rent a room but not if I lived with an SO, a kid, dogs, and a house full of computers and TVs. Perfectly normal people make little mistakes, like leaving the back door unlocked or not closing the fridge all the way. The potential for damage wouldn’t be worth $350/month. I’ve taken in temporary roommates but it was when my most valuable possession was my laptop and that left the house with me, there wasn’t anything they could damage that would upset me that much. And I rented, and the building wasn’t exactly in tip-top condition, if they happen to put a little scratch on the wood floors nobody would notice.
We had guests from out of town for the weekend a few weeks ago. They are good friends, but by Sunday evening we were ready for them to go home. My answer to the OP = NO!!!
We got our best tenants via Craig’s List, but they live in an apartment unit we own and not with us. Like most other people here, having a stranger living with my family would be weird. I’d rather downsize if I could get a reasonable price for my house, and move into a more affordable one.
When I was a single guy, sure. Now, with a wife, particularly one who often has trouble identifying skeevy-male behavior, probably not. With a child in the house, no way Jose.
I’ve rented shared apartment space before, so I know where you’re coming from.
Among the things I’ve had to deal with (some already mentioned):
-Roomie goes off and gets married leaving the mutual decision to be either they go off on their own or you now have a new tenant and deal with that.
-Roomie can’t be trusted and demonstrates rude behavior (snooping, not cleaning common areas, lack of cleanliness, whatever).
-Roomie doesn’t pay rent, which is a whole nother bag of apples.
Especially since you have a wife, I would be wary of who you rent to. One of the things that has usually worked for me is, during the application process, ask for a current copy of their lease and call their current landlord. I also ask for their direct employer’s number as well as at least one other professional reference and some personal references as well.
It sounds nosey, but if these people are going to be living in my house, I want to be able to trust who lives there while I’m out and about. As well as there are strict rules about leasing in my county, so I just want to cover my bases.
Personally, I would not. I’m paranoid, though, and also extremely private when I’m at home, so, just…no.
However, I have been a renter of rooms on two different occasions in my life with no trouble (other than accidentally running into the male half of the couple I was renting from while he was naked, once). And my ex-wife found a roommate via Craigslist to help with the mortgage when she and I first split up, and that was a successful venture. So it can be done!
Ask your family or friends if they know of any young college students or the like that might be willing. Be sure to ask the respectable family and friends, not the skeezy ones, and you have a character reference right there.
I’d never move in with strangers. It could be because I’m a girl and caution like this is second instinct. The only expection would be if I had my own door to enter and exit, but that would even be desperate, as I don’t want to share bathrooms with a stranger’s family.