House Swap Vacations

[renmure]

Anyone have any success (or horror) stories of doing one of these holidays where you effectively swap houses with someone for the period? Initially it seemed a great way to head off for a comfortable holiday somewhere exotic so I signed up with one of the main sites and have had a few inquiries or offers of exchange but just wondered if any of the PHers have 1st hand experience of it all. Good or bad.

[LadyHayles]

There was a holiday programme on the telly ages ago about this type of thing. There were no disaster stories and everyone seemed very happy although they were probably edited.

To be honest I can think of certain people amongst my friends who I wouldn't allow them to stay in my house without supervision (I love them but they are slightly useless) let alone some completely random foreign stranger.

Although the plus side is that if you're physically swapping houses for a short period then at least if they break anything at your house you know where they live!