Confessions of a house swapper
Australian travellers Angela Hart and her husband, Robert, have swapped houses 15 times. Angela spoke to Over60 about her experiences…
How does it feel letting “strangers” live in your home?
I’ve never been nervous. We have a separate flat attached to our house that we’ve rented out to holidaymakers for many years, so I was used to having people in our house.
You get to know the people you’re swapping with by phone and email beforehand, so they don’t feel like strangers.
If you are trusting of other people, they will respect that trust and will trust you in return.
Do you lock away or hide personal items, and if so, what items?
I do lock away some pieces of jewellery and precious breakables, but not because I think the house-swappers are going to steal them.
It’s for insurance reasons, in case they forget to lock the house one day or it’s broken into, and to safeguard a few very special items that have great sentimental value, for example a jug my sister made for me, from getting accidentally broken.
Do you build a picture of what your house-swappers are like when you’re living in their home? Does it ever feel strange?
I think it’s natural to look at their family photos on the wall and think to yourself, for example: “oh that must be the daughter” and so on. You certainly learn a lot about their lifestyle from their home and I’ve even picked up some helpful ideas.
We had a woman stay at our house who invited some friends over for dinner and it turned out the friends were also friends of ours, so it was very strange for them to go for dinner at our house and us not be there!
Have you ever broken something during a house swap?
The loo flooded the bathroom in one house. I was terribly worried about it but the owners were fine – apparently it had happened before and wasn’t our fault at all.
I broke a wine glass during our last swap so I bought the owner a new set of four wine glasses.
It’s all part of the mutual trust. I admit to any breakages and hope anyone staying in our house would do the same.
Have you made friends through house swapping?
Definitely. Some people we swapped with who live in the Loire Valley in France invited us to stay longer than we’d planned so we could spend some time with them. We’re also very friendly with another French family and I keep in touch with lots of people we’ve met through swapping.
What is the best thing about house swapping?
Obviously you save a lot of money, so if you’re retired like we are you can have much longer holidays. You can settle into somewhere and get to know the area like a local. We’ve sometimes swapped cars too, so you have your own transport included.
We’ve travelled all over the world with house swaps: Canada, the French and Italian Alps, Paris, Venice, the French Riviera, Austria, Portugal, various parts of the UK and, closer to home, Margaret River, Noosa and Tasmania.
Robert has Parkinson’s disease and two years ago decided not to travel any more. Then his old University friends organised a 50th anniversary reunion and we decided to use our frequent flyer points, organise a house swap and go! We had six weeks seeing old friends and relatives and the house swap helped make it all possible.