Garden Campers

[dadadreamer]

Over the weekend I had some more Couchsurfers staying, this time two 18 year old girls from Estonia, on their first travelling experience to London and Paris.  My profile says that I only put up one person at a time (because of the lounge being quite small), but they emailed me and asked if I'd make an exception as they hadn't been able to find

Comments

[erinmack]

Man, that whole exchange totally sucks. What's completely ridulous is that if you had said they were "friends of friends", he probably would've been more chill about it, even if they hadn't known you any more than they did.

[dadadreamer]

Initially we did say that, and I thought that he would leave them alone, but he cornered them when I wasn't looking, and they were quite sweet and innocent and didn't want to lie. The landlord says its OK for us to have friends to stay, but not people "from the internet", to which I replied that most of my friends are "from the internet". He thinks that he's being really gracious by allowing us to have friends to stay, I think he's being completely interfering.

I can sort of understand how Couchsurfing does come across as completely crazy to people who are not into that kind of thing, even some of my friends say that I'm mad to allow strangers to stay in my house. If I was letting any old traveller who passed through London to stay under my roof, then I might understand his concerns, but the truth is that I'm very picky, its only you and the Estonians who have stayed so far.

I'm not going to stop of course, just warn future Couchsurfers that they need to say that they're a longstanding friend of mine from way back.

[dansette]

Maybe we should all start ringing him in the early hours of the morning and going "I've pulled, is it alright to have my hot conquest spend the night in the house" until he gets fed up and leaves us to it! Seriously though renting has this horrible parent/child dynamic especially with a landlord likes ours (with the added minus that you have to give your landlord a huge chunk of your pay). Also see my_name_is_anna's recent post on housing.

[dadadreamer]

Just read Anna's post, and the whole thing just makes me so angry. I live in hope that the buy to let tred is just going to implode one day when there just aren't enough tennants for all the properties that are being bought and rented out, but I don't think that that will happen, because all the people who would have been able to buy afew years ago, are now stuck renting, and then there are always immigrants coming into a place like London.

Our landlord is particularly paternalistic, and it really gets my goat. I hate lining his pocket, and in return all we get is cheap, tatty furniture and rules and regulations.

[mzdt]

it's no consolation or solution but property really brings out the worst in capitalism...

Imagine if you were about have to Steve staying for four weeks. I'm lucky in that respect.

[elrestodemivida]

God, i wish it were practical for you guys to move in with me. It'd be so much fun. Maybe some time in the future it might be possible.

[elrestodemivida]

I don't think your landlord has any right to know if people stay overnight or not. A standard contract says that tenants can have people to stay as long as they don't take the piss (the wording's a bit more formal than that). Oh well, you know for next time, make sure couchsurfers don't go into such major detail - just say that they're mates of yours and they're just there for tea or whatever.