Preparing for a home exchange
OK, I am writing this piece because I have read a lot of nonsense about preparing your home for an exchange online. One person, who calls herself a "home exchange expert" has a fetish about sharp knives. She also recommends dumping out all your kitchen drawers to remove crumbs. For those with babies/toddlers, the same person advises duct taping the sockets in your home exchange home. Much of this advice is silly, in AlteCocker's opinion, so she decided to write a piece about what she does.
Your home is not a hospital and you are not cleaning an operating room in preparation for a heart surgery. It is also OK to decide not to exchange with families with very young children because you do not want your home duct taped. People with pets/babies/toddlers should simply exchange with those similarly situated and there will be no need for duct tape. AlteCocker certainly does not want to come home with a duct tape removal problem. The bad thing from this nonsense online is that people reading the pieces will think this is how it is done. It isn't.
1. It helps if you are basically clean in the first place. If you are not, you need to get with the program ahead of time. It simply is not fair to leave a dirty house for your exchangers. AlteCocker had to laugh when I read advice on Casa Versa that you should tell your exchanger if you are messy. if you did that, do you think anyone would exchange with you? No one is going to tell you, "Gee I am a slob." No one's photos will show you if their house is full of junk either. Dirty homes are the dark side of home exchange and all experienced exchangers have stories about unsatisfactory homes. For my "dead fly" experience in Sydney, check here.
2. Because AlteCocker home exchanges a lot (7 times in 2012 and 5 times in 2013; 4 scheduled in 2014), she constantly stays on top of repairs. You don't want to leave, for example, an annoying dripping shower faucet. If you can afford international airfares, you can afford to get that faucet fixed. This does not mean that you have to redo your kitchen in advance of the exchange. All homes are a work in progress. Just remember, you do not want to deal with major repairs from your exchange home if something goes wrong at your house, so being considerate does have its payoff. If your exchangers have the information on whom to call, they can make the call. If the repairman has previously worked for you, he may wait to get back to be paid or you will have to provide a credit card number. 3 weeks before heading to Costa Rica in November 2013, there was a major storm. Sitting in my bedroom, AlteCocker heard the tell tale drip drip drip sound from the roof. Damn straight she got that fixed pronto. It was the usual flashing around the chimney problem. AlteCocker would rather deal with that while at home instead of fielding panicky emails about water somewhere on the top floor while she is on holiday. What you can wait to do while you are at home, you cannot wait to do if you are going to be out of the country.
3. Prepare a book on your house explaining how everything works. European washers and dryers work differently than those in the US and both sides may have questions. Answer the questions in your book. You need to discuss every appliance in the house that may give a visitor problems. Yes, this is a lot of work, but do you want emails about how the washer or coffee machine works? You also do not want to come home to broken appliances. AlteCocker has been disappointed in 2 or 3 pages of house instructions left by inexperienced people that fail, for example, to explain how a complicated TV/entertainment system works.
4. The house should be thoroughly cleaned. AlteCocker does not include dumping out kitchen drawers to deal with every crumb. This is not Passover for Orthodox Jews. This is a home exchange. Your exchanger on the other end is certainly not, in my experience, going to do this. If you are crazy clean, you are going to complain about the person on the other end not being similarly crazy clean. However, AlteCocker does leave the kitchen with clean counters and dump out old food from the refrigerator. She I also treast the granite with sealant before leaving--a chore in a home with granite countertops that must be done periodically. Since AlteCocker's kitchen has been recently redone there are, by the way, no crumbs in the drawers yet, but there certainly will be.
5. Do not focus on the minutiae. Leaving a partially used bar of soap in the shower is certainly OK, contrary to what the "home exchange expert" says. You are not setting up your home like a hotel room (and hotel rooms are often not as clean as they should be if you look closely). AlteCocker home exchanges a lot. Sometimes it is a fresh bar of soap, sometimes not, because she does not want 97 little bars of partially used soap in her home (and it is the same on the other end in AlteCocker's experience). Those little hotel soaps are often all you need if they are laying around and you are doing a short exchange. When AlteCocker does a series of home exchanges, she might leave a fresh large bar in the master bedroom shower and little hotel soaps in the other bathrooms that may or may not be partially used. If the successive home exchangers want fresh, they can help themselves. It is all common sense here and everyone does it differently. AlteCocker uses up the leftovers when she gets home, by the way, because she can always wash them off. By the time they are used up, AlteCocker is generally preparing for her next home exchange. She is on her last partially used bar, by the way, as she prepares to head off to Poland, Belarus, Turkey and Sweden. She'll have more when she returns, but so what? So long as they clean up after themselves, AlteCocker does not care if they come with an entire army. Mi casa es su casa in a home exchange.
6. Be aware that you are exchanging with someone who lives in their home--as you live in yours. Neither of you lives in a museum and all homes have quirks--and quirky owners (including AlteCocker). The decor may not be to your taste, but, remember, you are not buying the home or holding a wedding or bar mitzvah in the house. If you own the Hope Diamond put it in a safe deposit box, but AlteCocker's valuables--such as they are (and, alas, no Hope Diamond)--are left where they are. In 55 home exchanges, no one has stolen anything. In fact, no one home exchanges to steal. You and your exchangers will be too busy touring to bother inspecting where they shouldn't. The worst that happens is a broken dish or people who put things back every which way. It is annoying and it did happen with the Costa Rican exchangers in November-December 2014. There were way too many broken dishes and the kitchen was a total mess (as was their home in Costa Rica). AlteCocker now has hidden her good pottery dishes and bought a cheap service for 12 at an amazon.com warehouse sale price. If a few of the amazon.com dishes get broken she won't be upset. She paid $40 for service for 12. Problem solved with compulsive dish smashers. People who don't clean up properly or who put the kitchen supplies back every which way are something you have to deal with. AlteCocker has no answer for that--or for people whose homes are, well, not as clean as they ought to be.
7. Arrange to pay all your bills online and prepay or give post dated checks to those who still insist on checks.
8. Get your car looked at, make sure your inspection sticker is up to date and leave specific instructions if your car has unusual features. AlteCocker generally has the oil changed in the car before leaving home and fixes anything she knows about. That does not guarantee against car breakdowns--or minor accidents--but it helps. There is nothing more annoying on a home exchange than a malfuctioning car. AlteCocker had one home exchange in Bavaria where the house was dirty and the car was in need of major repairs (note the plural)--and the mechanic advised the home exchangers of the situation in advance. The people left my house in a disgusting condition as well (focus on toilets and you will get the idea). That house went in the Home Exchange Hall of Shame--and the people never exchanged again. Fortunately, that was the only time in 55 exchanges that AlteCocker experienced this. Almost all home exchangers will clean your home to your standards. One advantage of a messy place, by the way, is that you won't have to do much cleaning when you leave. The messy ones won't even know that you have been there. In Costa Rica AlteCocker did not have much cleaning to do, but she really could not use the kitchen. Slowly she opened the microwave. Yuk. She ate out.
9. If you are obsessive-compulsive when it comes to cleaning, you won't be happy home exchanging because no one's cleaning will satisfy you. AlteCocker's mother was a good example of someone who should not. When she would come to visit, she would inspect AlteCocker's home for dust and criticize AlteCocker's cleaning woman's efforts. She would run her finger along remote crevasses and announce "Your woman. She doesn't dust." AlteCocker would give her a dust rag with instructions to make herself at home. If you are like that, home exchange will not be for you because you must be prepared to compromise your standards and accept less than the perfect.
10. If you are a total slob, you shouldn't be in the home exchange business either, but, unfortunately, if you exchange enough, you will run into those people (despite the staged lovely house photos posted online). When you get an unsatisfactory house, you can either move out or tolerate it--but you cannot expect to change it long distance. You are basically stuck unless you want to spend a lot of money for alternative accommodations. AlteCocker focuses on the positive. In the infamous "dead fly" house in Sydney, she was not going to clean the house to her standards. She just got out of the house--a lot. Home exchange does not guarantee perfect homes. It just guarantees a place to sleep and shower.
11. AlteCocker washes all the bed pads and, of course, changes the sheets and towels before each exchange. Now that does not mean that the bed pads are done on the morning of the exchange. Horrors! She might do them a few days before and then strip the sheets on the morning of the exchange. If you do not have enough time to change the sheets, leave clean sheets out for the exchangers. If your sheets are left in the wash or dryer, ask your home exchangers to finish them. Remember to leave the good sheets for your home exchangers. AlteCocker stashes the marginal/ill fitting ones in the closet during the exchange. By the way, if there is last minute undone laundry, AlteCocker leaves it in a laundry bag in a corner of the laundry room to await her return. Do not leave personal laundry in the washer or dryer expecting your home exchangers to finish it up--not so nice. In addition to changing the sheets, AlteCocker leaves a second fresh set folded on top of the bed so exchangers will not have to figure out which sheets fit which bed when they change them.
12. Much is made about cleaning out drawers and closets for your exchangers online. In AlteCocker's experience, that is a nice touch, but not absolutely necessary. Savvy experienced exchangers will not travel with much and will live out of their suitcases much of the time. So, if you forget to do this (and AlteCocker has), don't panic. You will not be publically castigated online for this grievous sin.
13. About gifts for exchangers: A bottle of wine--or some product from your area--is nice, but really isn't obligatory. AlteCocker sometimes leaves a small gift (usually a Christmas ornament from somewhere like Mount Vernon), but not always because she forgets. Remember the real gift is the use of your home and car--and your trust. By the way, some exchangers have been known to not realize a gift was a gift and not take it. You might want to leave a note. Do not leave anything that takes up too much room in your home exchangers' suitcases!
Please feel free to contact me on the blog on the home page or through the links on the top and bottom of the page if you have other suggestions. The most important thing on a home exchange is to have a good time on your holiday! If you need sharp knives, by the way, the sharpening steel is in the knife block with the knives. Enjoy yourself and sharpen to your heart's content, but, if you are going to cook, please remember to clean the kitchen thoroughly before you leave! AlteCocker does not want to have to clean her oven because home exchangers cooked a Thanksgiving turkey there. Clean up after yourself!
Your home is not a hospital and you are not cleaning an operating room in preparation for a heart surgery. It is also OK to decide not to exchange with families with very young children because you do not want your home duct taped. People with pets/babies/toddlers should simply exchange with those similarly situated and there will be no need for duct tape. AlteCocker certainly does not want to come home with a duct tape removal problem. The bad thing from this nonsense online is that people reading the pieces will think this is how it is done. It isn't.
1. It helps if you are basically clean in the first place. If you are not, you need to get with the program ahead of time. It simply is not fair to leave a dirty house for your exchangers. AlteCocker had to laugh when I read advice on Casa Versa that you should tell your exchanger if you are messy. if you did that, do you think anyone would exchange with you? No one is going to tell you, "Gee I am a slob." No one's photos will show you if their house is full of junk either. Dirty homes are the dark side of home exchange and all experienced exchangers have stories about unsatisfactory homes. For my "dead fly" experience in Sydney, check here.
2. Because AlteCocker home exchanges a lot (7 times in 2012 and 5 times in 2013; 4 scheduled in 2014), she constantly stays on top of repairs. You don't want to leave, for example, an annoying dripping shower faucet. If you can afford international airfares, you can afford to get that faucet fixed. This does not mean that you have to redo your kitchen in advance of the exchange. All homes are a work in progress. Just remember, you do not want to deal with major repairs from your exchange home if something goes wrong at your house, so being considerate does have its payoff. If your exchangers have the information on whom to call, they can make the call. If the repairman has previously worked for you, he may wait to get back to be paid or you will have to provide a credit card number. 3 weeks before heading to Costa Rica in November 2013, there was a major storm. Sitting in my bedroom, AlteCocker heard the tell tale drip drip drip sound from the roof. Damn straight she got that fixed pronto. It was the usual flashing around the chimney problem. AlteCocker would rather deal with that while at home instead of fielding panicky emails about water somewhere on the top floor while she is on holiday. What you can wait to do while you are at home, you cannot wait to do if you are going to be out of the country.
3. Prepare a book on your house explaining how everything works. European washers and dryers work differently than those in the US and both sides may have questions. Answer the questions in your book. You need to discuss every appliance in the house that may give a visitor problems. Yes, this is a lot of work, but do you want emails about how the washer or coffee machine works? You also do not want to come home to broken appliances. AlteCocker has been disappointed in 2 or 3 pages of house instructions left by inexperienced people that fail, for example, to explain how a complicated TV/entertainment system works.
4. The house should be thoroughly cleaned. AlteCocker does not include dumping out kitchen drawers to deal with every crumb. This is not Passover for Orthodox Jews. This is a home exchange. Your exchanger on the other end is certainly not, in my experience, going to do this. If you are crazy clean, you are going to complain about the person on the other end not being similarly crazy clean. However, AlteCocker does leave the kitchen with clean counters and dump out old food from the refrigerator. She I also treast the granite with sealant before leaving--a chore in a home with granite countertops that must be done periodically. Since AlteCocker's kitchen has been recently redone there are, by the way, no crumbs in the drawers yet, but there certainly will be.
5. Do not focus on the minutiae. Leaving a partially used bar of soap in the shower is certainly OK, contrary to what the "home exchange expert" says. You are not setting up your home like a hotel room (and hotel rooms are often not as clean as they should be if you look closely). AlteCocker home exchanges a lot. Sometimes it is a fresh bar of soap, sometimes not, because she does not want 97 little bars of partially used soap in her home (and it is the same on the other end in AlteCocker's experience). Those little hotel soaps are often all you need if they are laying around and you are doing a short exchange. When AlteCocker does a series of home exchanges, she might leave a fresh large bar in the master bedroom shower and little hotel soaps in the other bathrooms that may or may not be partially used. If the successive home exchangers want fresh, they can help themselves. It is all common sense here and everyone does it differently. AlteCocker uses up the leftovers when she gets home, by the way, because she can always wash them off. By the time they are used up, AlteCocker is generally preparing for her next home exchange. She is on her last partially used bar, by the way, as she prepares to head off to Poland, Belarus, Turkey and Sweden. She'll have more when she returns, but so what? So long as they clean up after themselves, AlteCocker does not care if they come with an entire army. Mi casa es su casa in a home exchange.
6. Be aware that you are exchanging with someone who lives in their home--as you live in yours. Neither of you lives in a museum and all homes have quirks--and quirky owners (including AlteCocker). The decor may not be to your taste, but, remember, you are not buying the home or holding a wedding or bar mitzvah in the house. If you own the Hope Diamond put it in a safe deposit box, but AlteCocker's valuables--such as they are (and, alas, no Hope Diamond)--are left where they are. In 55 home exchanges, no one has stolen anything. In fact, no one home exchanges to steal. You and your exchangers will be too busy touring to bother inspecting where they shouldn't. The worst that happens is a broken dish or people who put things back every which way. It is annoying and it did happen with the Costa Rican exchangers in November-December 2014. There were way too many broken dishes and the kitchen was a total mess (as was their home in Costa Rica). AlteCocker now has hidden her good pottery dishes and bought a cheap service for 12 at an amazon.com warehouse sale price. If a few of the amazon.com dishes get broken she won't be upset. She paid $40 for service for 12. Problem solved with compulsive dish smashers. People who don't clean up properly or who put the kitchen supplies back every which way are something you have to deal with. AlteCocker has no answer for that--or for people whose homes are, well, not as clean as they ought to be.
7. Arrange to pay all your bills online and prepay or give post dated checks to those who still insist on checks.
8. Get your car looked at, make sure your inspection sticker is up to date and leave specific instructions if your car has unusual features. AlteCocker generally has the oil changed in the car before leaving home and fixes anything she knows about. That does not guarantee against car breakdowns--or minor accidents--but it helps. There is nothing more annoying on a home exchange than a malfuctioning car. AlteCocker had one home exchange in Bavaria where the house was dirty and the car was in need of major repairs (note the plural)--and the mechanic advised the home exchangers of the situation in advance. The people left my house in a disgusting condition as well (focus on toilets and you will get the idea). That house went in the Home Exchange Hall of Shame--and the people never exchanged again. Fortunately, that was the only time in 55 exchanges that AlteCocker experienced this. Almost all home exchangers will clean your home to your standards. One advantage of a messy place, by the way, is that you won't have to do much cleaning when you leave. The messy ones won't even know that you have been there. In Costa Rica AlteCocker did not have much cleaning to do, but she really could not use the kitchen. Slowly she opened the microwave. Yuk. She ate out.
9. If you are obsessive-compulsive when it comes to cleaning, you won't be happy home exchanging because no one's cleaning will satisfy you. AlteCocker's mother was a good example of someone who should not. When she would come to visit, she would inspect AlteCocker's home for dust and criticize AlteCocker's cleaning woman's efforts. She would run her finger along remote crevasses and announce "Your woman. She doesn't dust." AlteCocker would give her a dust rag with instructions to make herself at home. If you are like that, home exchange will not be for you because you must be prepared to compromise your standards and accept less than the perfect.
10. If you are a total slob, you shouldn't be in the home exchange business either, but, unfortunately, if you exchange enough, you will run into those people (despite the staged lovely house photos posted online). When you get an unsatisfactory house, you can either move out or tolerate it--but you cannot expect to change it long distance. You are basically stuck unless you want to spend a lot of money for alternative accommodations. AlteCocker focuses on the positive. In the infamous "dead fly" house in Sydney, she was not going to clean the house to her standards. She just got out of the house--a lot. Home exchange does not guarantee perfect homes. It just guarantees a place to sleep and shower.
11. AlteCocker washes all the bed pads and, of course, changes the sheets and towels before each exchange. Now that does not mean that the bed pads are done on the morning of the exchange. Horrors! She might do them a few days before and then strip the sheets on the morning of the exchange. If you do not have enough time to change the sheets, leave clean sheets out for the exchangers. If your sheets are left in the wash or dryer, ask your home exchangers to finish them. Remember to leave the good sheets for your home exchangers. AlteCocker stashes the marginal/ill fitting ones in the closet during the exchange. By the way, if there is last minute undone laundry, AlteCocker leaves it in a laundry bag in a corner of the laundry room to await her return. Do not leave personal laundry in the washer or dryer expecting your home exchangers to finish it up--not so nice. In addition to changing the sheets, AlteCocker leaves a second fresh set folded on top of the bed so exchangers will not have to figure out which sheets fit which bed when they change them.
12. Much is made about cleaning out drawers and closets for your exchangers online. In AlteCocker's experience, that is a nice touch, but not absolutely necessary. Savvy experienced exchangers will not travel with much and will live out of their suitcases much of the time. So, if you forget to do this (and AlteCocker has), don't panic. You will not be publically castigated online for this grievous sin.
13. About gifts for exchangers: A bottle of wine--or some product from your area--is nice, but really isn't obligatory. AlteCocker sometimes leaves a small gift (usually a Christmas ornament from somewhere like Mount Vernon), but not always because she forgets. Remember the real gift is the use of your home and car--and your trust. By the way, some exchangers have been known to not realize a gift was a gift and not take it. You might want to leave a note. Do not leave anything that takes up too much room in your home exchangers' suitcases!
Please feel free to contact me on the blog on the home page or through the links on the top and bottom of the page if you have other suggestions. The most important thing on a home exchange is to have a good time on your holiday! If you need sharp knives, by the way, the sharpening steel is in the knife block with the knives. Enjoy yourself and sharpen to your heart's content, but, if you are going to cook, please remember to clean the kitchen thoroughly before you leave! AlteCocker does not want to have to clean her oven because home exchangers cooked a Thanksgiving turkey there. Clean up after yourself!