Digs -What's the norm?

yellow hen

Just wondering if anyone on here has experience in letting a room as digs? We are planning to let a room for the first time this year. I'm sort of planning it based on my experiences about 20years ago so wouldn't mind some advice. We're planning on basing it on 5 nights (Sun-Thurs) with breakfast and dinner from Mon-Thur. My questions are:

Are the students generally allowed entry to the home during the day or is it a case of you must be gone by 10am and can't return before 5pm?
Are visitors generally allowed?
Are there curfews or is that very unfair?
Do you allow them to watch tv in the family living room or is providing a tv in their bedroom ok?
If offering a twin room, is it difficult to find two students to share a space having not met previously?

We're also finding it very difficult to find rates. Based on the above and also including the fact that it's a brand new furnished room with ensuite, I think €100 per person per week is fair. Is it?

I want to be fair and let the students/tenants feel comfortable in the space that they're paying good money for but this is also our home so I don't want it abused.

dobsdave

You might be better trying the accomodation or 3rd level education section as opposed to Kildare.

yellow hen

dobsdave wrote: »

You might be better trying the accomodation or 3rd level education section as opposed to Kildare.

I've put it in uni forums too but I thought Kildare might have some traffic on this too. Thanks though

L1011

I would talk to the SU housing officer of the insitution(s) you expect to get people from - MU I guess? They would be able to let you know what is the norm and likely have sample agreements (they're not tenancy contracts - the student is a licencee not a tenant) and so on also.

MissFlitworth

Rules are kind of up to you because they're licensees in your home and not tenants but sometimes students get really horribly treated by the people owning their digs who they pay loads of money to so we always leaned on the side of allowing them to be as 'at home' as possible.

Are the students generally allowed entry to the home during the day or is it a case of you must be gone by 10am and can't return before 5pm? Always allowed back into the house during the day, they might need somewhere to study, be unwell, have no classes till midday etc
Are visitors generally allowed? No, none of ours ever had visitors
Are there curfews or is that very unfair? No curfews but rules on being quiet & respectful coming in at night
Do you allow them to watch tv in the family living room or is providing a tv in their bedroom ok? Ours had access to the house, €400 each a month to only have access to your bedroom is a bit rough. Be different if you had 2 family rooms or something though. Most of our students spent very little time with us though.
If offering a twin room, is it difficult to find two students to share a space having not met previously? No, wasn't difficult in our experience. Most of our students didn't know each other previously.

As mentioned above, contact the accomodation office of wherever you're hoping to have students from, they'll be delighted to help you out with info

Lex Luthor

€100 a week for a room plus B&B seems very reasonable. Would have thought it was a lot more....going to be sending my eldest off in another year or so and wondering on the costs

yellow hen

Thanks for that really helpful post msflitworth. I must admit I didn't find the accomodation office that helpful.

Are there any formal written rules/agreements given to/signed by the students? The only things I want tonne clear about are
1. Be respectful of our home. Come and go as you please and make tea:coffee as you need but tidy up after and don't bring friends back.
2. If they lose house keys, they will pay for a locksmith.
3. Welcome to use wifi but would ask them not to download a lot as it'll crash out bandwidth that I need for work.
I think that's all fair.
Would you generally (with their permission) access the room during the week to replace or dry towels or open windows etc?