Hosting foreign students?

plarka

I'm thinking of doing this but waiting to hear back from a school about it. Not sure they'll accept us as we have a 2 bed flat and I thought we could put all four of us (me and dh adn our 5 and 2 year olds) in one bedroom and use the other for students. I could get bunkbeds and a single and have 3 students in there! But we only have one bathroom. Would it be considered overcrowded and they won't let us? Anyone know anything about this?

We own our flat, if that makes any difference.

SchminkyCat

My mum does this and I have been trying to get her to stop for a while now as it is hard work, incredibly stressful, and pays peanuts. She hates doing it and moans constantly about having them.

She gets £13 per day, per student, and that has to cover breakfast, lunch, tea, drinks when they are home, and petrol to pick them up, drop them off at the beginning and end of their stay, and drop them off and collect them from their weekly disco (if they are under a certain age - 16 I think).

She barely makes anything at the end of the day. She currently has 1 who has very specific food requests, which she is getting no extra money for, and the last 2 she had for 4 week were 18 yr old lads who ate her out of house and home (between the 2 of them she was getting through at least 2 boxes of cereal and 1 pot of jam every week for breakfast!)

Should also mention that she has to shop in about 4 different supermarkets to get the very best price on absolutely everything in order to make any profit (and one of my arguements with her over this is the amount of petrol she spends driving to all of them in order to save a few pennies!).

She does make some money at the end, but it isn't much and is a lot of work. I must admit its not something that I think is worth doing, and there is absolutely no way I would consider it with young children (I have a 6yr old and a 2yr old). Too much work for too little pay!

Oh, and the other thing, if they are under a certain age (under 18 I think), then they aren't allowed to have their own key, so you have to make sure you are always in when they are coming home - which may not be possible with children to drop off/collect from school. So if you do decide to go ahead you might want to consider asking for adults only!

SchminkyCat

Sorry that's such a negative reply, I am sorry. I guess that I have just seen how much she hates it and I couldn't bring myself to recommend it to anyone. When she complained about being asked to provide specific foods for her current student with no additional fee, the guy that she deals with at the school made some flippant remark about "hoping that he no longer had hosts who were only doing it for the money".....

phill99

Both my sisters do this and have been doing so for years. They live in a city with loads of language schools. They used to do the under 16s but found that to be hassle as pointed out above.

They now do the over 16s and normally the mature students on long term English language courses. One sister has 2 guys from the middle east who are here for 6 months and it just like having a lodger. They hav to have 2 meals a day but no need to pick them up and take them any where as thy have to get the bus as part of the course! She gets app £140 a week for each. Feeding is quite inexpensive but you just have avoid certain foods.

My other sister tends to board the staff and the coach drivers that come over on the language tours. Again no need for running them around and only have to provide breakfast. Both make a decent amount of money out of it, but it is worth not doing the young teenagers.

I don't think you will be allowed 3 in a room. Probably 2 maximum.

ukclare

We did this many years ago, as a young couple, and loved it. The best thing was that if there were students you did not get on with you knew they would be gone in a few weeks! It is really luck of the draw but I agree with the other posters - older students are better - probably older teenagers who enjoy the freedom of being away from home and therefore don't want to be tied to coming home for dinner. We only had to supply breakfast and an evening meal - I served it at a fixed time and if they weren't home they did not expect it so most days they ate out! For us it was quite profitable. We did not experience any major problems or have any damage to our home as they seemed to respect that it was our home and treat it and us very well!
If it is a disaster the hosting company will probably be happy/relieved to move them anyway!

Good luck - its definitely worth trying once or twice

whitelabel

plarka wrote: »

I'm thinking of doing this but waiting to hear back from a school about it. Not sure they'll accept us as we have a 2 bed flat and I thought we could put all four of us (me and dh adn our 5 and 2 year olds) in one bedroom and use the other for students. I could get bunkbeds and a single and have 3 students in there! But we only have one bathroom. Would it be considered overcrowded and they won't let us? Anyone know anything about this?

We own our flat, if that makes any difference.

This is serious over crowding and i dont think you should consider it to be honest. 4 people in one room isnt great for anyone

jenniemiller177

I've been thinking about doing this as well. My sister has has someone staying with her for about 3 weeks now. She says she gets £120 per week. The chap doesn't eat much at all and is hardly there so she feels it easy! I guess it depends on who you get.

For me, I have the space but need to get my head around someone else staying in my home!

Charityworker

A friend of mines parents used to have a foreign student every year under and over 18 and they've never had a car. It was all going well until they denied one of them something they wanted and while they were out they trashed the house.

jenniemiller177

oh blimey, thats the kind of horror stories you do hear from time to time!

Bmth100

I teach English in a language school and I would say stick with the adult students. Obviously there's exceptions to both but they're generally more respectful, particularly the Saudis.

But the situation above sounds a bit ridiculous sorry.. 4 in one bedroom is absurd!