Yesterday was a moving day, left our Dunsborough Home Ex cottage, stuffed all our possessions into Ivan the campervan, on the road a couple of hours North to Mandurah to spend Easter with friends
I came up with this list of top 10 Do’s and Don’ts when leaving a Home Exchange
1. Leave the house in better shape than when you arrived.
2. Leave more food and household supplies than when you arrived. You’ve just saved hundreds or thousands of dollars so now is not the time to cheap out on replacing the ketchup, toilet paper or laundry detergent.
3. Put back any furniture rearrangements you made, they will notice and they probably liked how their house was arranged when they left for their trip.
4. Check that the toilet is clean. Sorry to mention it but I did have a bad experience last summer …let’s just say we blamed it on the kids…. still it is no excuse.
5. If the Home Ex has been a good experience show your appreciation with a small personal gift such as fresh flowers or perfume and a thank you note
6. Plan ahead, don’t leave 5 loads of laundry until the morning you leave resulting in them arriving home to a Chinese laundry…!!
7. Don’t leave old food in the fridge; whilst it’s considerate to leave fresh supplies for their arrival it is not cool to leave mouldy fruit, the dregs of a milk/orange juice carton or carrots so old and bendy that they are in need of a viagra fix.
8. Be honest with your fellow exchangers….if you broke something replace it and if you used up their crunchy peanut butter and didn’t replace it because peanut butter is hard to find in Spain …then apologise!
9. Send a thank you email after your departure and be honest….. if you had a good time tell them what it was you liked. If you had a bad experience telling them will help future exchangers.
10. Pack up your Marmite sandwiches and move on to new adventures.
Your top 10 tips are spot on – well done! Would it be ok with you if I quoted your tips, with a direct link back to your original post, on my blog, Travel the Home Exchange Way? I will wait to hear from you.
Cheers!
Lois, yes that’s is not a problem as long as it is referenced and linked, thanks for the feedback.
With the cost of travel going up and the economy slowing, Home For Swap has created a web site to address the high costs associated with travel.
Home For Swap has launched http://www.homeforswap.com, a community website that allows users to exchange homes with each other, thus saving on hotel costs during their next vacation. In addition to saving on lodging costs, members are to find out that they can save even more since their free home also gives them access to other amenities for free, such as a kitchen for meals, a washer and dryer, and even DVD’s. Some residences have free internet access and amenities such as bicycles to take in the local sights. Some members even swap automobiles.