Advice on what to do next?

allybee101

You could try asking around at work and see if anyone needs somewhere to lodge. They may have a friend/ family needing somewhere. Or do you have placement students at your school that need somewehere to stay for the term that they're working?
They may be going home at weekends too so you'd get the place to yourself at the weekends.
Where I work we have an intranet with forums. There's a thread for Wanted/For Sale. There's always people on assignments and secondments looking for somewhere to stay Mon-Fri.
If you advertise on a room mate website you might find people looking for something similar.

V_Chic_Chick

I'd second the idea about tutoring - it can be quite lucrative (I know one undergraduate on £15ph in Manchester) especially when you're a qualified teacher.

You could also consider hosting language students - they are very short term, but the money is fairly good, and it's all done via a language school. When I lived in Bristol, I had an advert put through my door offering £125pw. The downside is that they want feeding, and they will probably want to practice their English on you.

I don't think the cat would necessarily put people off lodging with you. It would put me off because I'm allergic, but if you had a dog that would be a major plus point, because having grown up with them, I do miss having dogs. I'm sure the same applies to people who grew up with cats! Having a cat, however, would make moving to rented accommodation more problematic for you.

Don't forget that lodgers have very few rights, and can be evicted quite easily, so if it doesn't work out with an individual, then there's nothing to say that you have to be stuck with them for six or twelve months.