Hello,
For those that want to start a Homestay business,there is a book
just came out called 'Homestay 101 for Hosts' by Cheryl Verstrate.
www.homestaycentral.com .I saw her being interviewed on TV this
morning and I thought people here might want to take a look into
this type of business. Some of my friends are doing it , they found it
flexible and the income is like an average rent. Yoong

My sister has had homestay students for years. Mostly they have been very successful. I think she has only ever had to ask a couple of young men to leave and she has three or four students most of the time.

At the moment she is a bit ticked off, and rightly so. She has a student there. When she told me about him first, I assumed he was about 18. Turns out he is 27. Daddy pays for everything. Before Thanksgiving, the student came to her and asked if she could possibly lend him $20, which she did. Then at Thanksgiving he asked if she could lend him a bottle of wine for dinner. Which she did. At the time she told him that it was expensive wine and he would have to go to the specialty store to replace it. He said he would do that.

Earlier this week when I spoke to her - he had returned neither. She wrote him a note saying that when she lent him things, she did not think she would have to ask to have them returned. She said that he said his Dad was sending him money and he would soon be able to pay her back her $20 - but he never mentioned the wine. She says she is going to tell him to pay her $50 and she will replace the wine.

I guess the moral of the story is - don't lend you tenants things - sometimes it will come back to bite you! Specially when the guy is 27 going on 15!

Seems rather harsh to tar all tenents based on the selfish actions of one overgrown kid. I guess her first clue should have been that hes 27 and Daddy is still paying for everything.

Makes one wonder what type of relationship they have!

You mean the son and the Dad?

If you mean my sister and the renter - I think she has mostly had a very good experience with the renters and she was just doing him a favour. However, I am pretty sure from now on - he won't be getting any favours!

I kind of agree - when a guy is 27 and Daddy is paying for everything as Iaink said - she should have twigged to the fact that he was very immature and irresponsible.

My brother and wife had 2 siblings (8 and 11) sent by their parents
for 6 weeks for Canadian summer experience and to learn English.
Things did not work out , they did not get along with their kids,etc
however there was an agent they could liaise with and the kids
were sent to a different family and my brother another kid that
was more suitable. Good thing about this homestay that you are
not stuck with a bad renter if you do it through an agent and the same
goes for the renter. Yoong