Honey I swapped the house

Your house is your castle - would you really like to have strangers invading your private corners? Well Maeve Binchy certainly didn't mind. She had the inside track when she tackled the subject of house swaps in her book, Tara Road. She swapped her Dalkey home with a woman in Australia, and the ensuing adventure provided a rich vein for a book and a spin-off movie.

The sense of connection was immediate, and the Dublin author says she knew her exchange host's secrets "very well, because I was living among her things. I knew the bills she didn't pay; I knew the neighbours who didn't like her; I knew that her husband used a hair-restorer. And she knew all those things about me. We met two years later and it was, really, like meeting an old friend. It was at that point that I said, 'I'm going to write a book about this'. It was an incredibly intense relationship".

Many householders will grimace at the very thought of complete strangers going through their 'stuff', rooting through their bills and their knickers drawers, reading private correspondence and helping themselves to some of that prized, 10-year-old malt hidden at the back of the drinks cabinet. There's the whole issue of valuables and how much access to give these unsupervised visitors. What if they spill red wine all over the new cream carpet, break the prized china or upset the neighbours with all-night raves?

Growing numbers of Irish people are swapping homes and figures show a 20pc increase in enquiries about home swaps here suggests that Irish homeowners are willing to take the chance. While the majority head to Europe (52pc) or America, there is demand for house exchanges as far away as South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, the latter being popular with teachers -- some of whom exchange homes for six weeks at a time.

Expectations

Portlaoise mum-of-two Martina Carew admits her "greatest worry was not 'will they wreck our house?' but 'will our home live up to their expectations?'" With husband Tim and children Christopher (nine) and Alice (seven), they swapped their Midlands home for an apartment in Bergen, Norway, and a house in Bern, Switzerland, in 2007.

"The level of trust in home exchanges is enormous and quite gratifying," says Martina. "Lots of people asked us if we were worried about our house being wrecked, but it's a reciprocal arrangement and a case of 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'," she says.

The Carews started with a serious clean and declutter before taking photos of their home to upload onto the exchange website.

Martina says that while their house didn't require serious maintenance work, they were "hyper about leaving it clean and tidy. I wanted to have everything perfect for the other famil, but with young kids around that's difficult -- you'll have just washed a floor when they walk over it. You put pressure on yourself, but this really was the only downside", she reflects.

"Trying to get the house ready and leave Portlaoise for a flight with two young children was somewhat stressful. Then again, we did return to a pristine home."

The responsibilities of borrowing a house would flummox most people. Anyone with young kids who has stayed with relatives in pristine homes will know that feeling of dread when you turn around to discover that they've left sticky fingerprints all over the new sofa or scribbled indelible marker onto the walls.

Recalling her first trip away, Martina Carew admits that they all had to adjust to living in a stranger's house. "For that first night, you're a bundle of nerves, but by day two you begin to relax. We also worried about how the people were getting on in our home, but the feedback we got from our neighbour who let them in was very positive.

"We did feel a responsibility that the other people would like the locality, as some people asked why house swappers would want to come to Portlaoise. However, being just over an hour's drive from Dublin is nothing to most tourists and we had great interest. The majority want to travel and Portlaoise is so central that they can use it as a base for the whole country, as well as enjoying the local amenities."

Veteran swapper

Marie Murphy is a veteran of 16 house swaps in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Canada and the US. This summer, she is off to Cape Cod for three weeks, at a cost of just €950 for air fares for herself and her husband. The American couple who are swapping their holiday home will come to Ireland in a year or two for their leg of the exchange.

"Everything depends on a high level of trust," says Marie, who runs the Irish leg of the Homelink directory and website. "It's like a close family and people try to help each other out. The other people are handing over their house too. You're in contact with them before you travel, and once you do your first house swap you get over this fear."

The key to a successful exchange is to be considerate and upfront, explains Marie. "Agree that if you use all of the washing powder, you will replace it before leaving. If using each other's cars, leave a full tank of petrol. People can be a bit shy about saying things, but effective communication will avoid misunderstandings. It's a nice touch to leave some food and flowers, as well as a small welcoming present."

She recommends asking plenty of questions and getting photographs to help avoid difficulties, and also the importance of spelling out the standards expected.

So, once you've cleaned up your act, do you also have to tackle those long-fingered DIY jobs? Every house has its little idiosyncrasies: the dishwasher that won't work without an energetic flick of the hip; or the backdoor key that sticks and needs a little jerk. Can you really send the prospective house swappers a 'snag list' for your house, or does everything have to be absolutely perfect, like a property from the pages of House & Garden?

Marie takes a sensible line. "You don't have to re-do your house from top to bottom, but if there is a bit of painting to be done then get the brush out," she says. "You could have a very old house with a lot of old things in it, but having it clean is the main thing." Most homeowners compile a guide to the workings of the house, ensuring that a wonky door or hi-tech appliance won't pose a problem.

If the grandeur of some of the homes on offer makes your abode seem very humble indeed, fear not. "Your house doesn't have to be palatial. A lot of Americans have lovely homes, but they're not necessarily looking for the same type of house," Marie says. "They like a bit of character and the feeling that they are being looked after."

It is always better to inform your company that you will have people staying in your home while you are away. If you are concerned about priceless family heirlooms and valuable computer/photographic/sound equipment, you can lock these things into a spare room or the attic. "If you're going to do that, you should tell the other party or it could create a sense of mistrust," Marie counsels.

Swapped twice on one holiday

Frank and Laura Quinn from Drumcondra, Dublin, and their four children have done several house exchanges, and in 2004 they took in a double US house swap, which some might consider ambitious.

"I came across Homeexchange.com on the web and took to the concept," says Frank, joint MD of a magazine publishing company. "I thought the look-up system was very clever and, although there are thousands of listings, you can target particular areas.

"We swapped with two parties during the same trip: Valerie Erde and her husband Dan Goodman in Riverside, part of Greenwich, Connecticut, who exchanged simultaneously; then Marcus Cornelius in New Hampshire, who swapped his holiday home with us and made the return trip later, so we got to meet him in Ireland," he explains.

"Riverside was brilliant -- just a short train ride to New York City. We were able to get under the skin of living the American way, which wouldn't have happened if we'd been in a hotel. Moving six souls across the Atlantic and paying for accommodation would have been hugely expensive," Frank explains.

"We stayed at Marcus' holiday home in the lake district of New Hampshire in a village called Sandwich. We had a very low footprint in both houses. We ate breakfast in and went out for the day a lot of the time, while some days we had barbecues."

"You're potentially inviting disaster by swapping your home and car with total strangers, but in reality that doesn't happen," he adds. "Americans are very respectful -- they worry about things such as dress codes in restaurants. You get a measure of people when you've been emailing and speaking to them on the phone, too. We left a manual and post-its to explain things..

"We've had some fantastic house swaps in the past in Florida and Bordeaux. Although we're renting a villa this year, we have a store of potential swaps -- there's always something to tempt you," says Frank.

The other side of the swap

Valerie Erde, who has a sportstraining business, her husband Dan, and their two children swapped their 1926 colonial home in Riverside town, Greenwich (a suburb of NYC), with the Quinns in Drumcondra.

Valerie concedes that "swapping houses requires an awful lot of work beforehand, and sometimes I swear I'm not going to do it again. You want your house to be as clean and hotel-like as possible.

"Going to Europe isn't so bad because the flights always depart in the evening, so you have the whole day to get the house ready, or have your housekeeper come. It's harder coming the other way because the flights leave early and you don't want to leave their house in a mess," Valerie explains. "What we try to do is to have an arrangement with the other family that when we leave, we strip the beds and do as much laundry as we can, but that neither one expects it all to be done.

"We have come up with a manual for the house and area that we continually update. We even did a French version for the appliances. When we got to the Quinns', there was something about the hob and we had no idea what it was. In France, we never quite figured out how to use the clothes dryer properly, but that's part of the fun and adds a completely different dimension to travel."

"You also have to leave information about where the garbage goes and supermarket locations. Swapping cars was a little nerve-wracking for us because the Quinns had a beautiful new Volvo. Our cars were older so we weren't so worried.

"Frank's parents were helpful in terms of their house and the immediate area. We used the Drumcondra home as a base for the Dublin area and went to Newgrange and Malahide. Then we stayed in their beach house. We wanted to explore Kerry, so we supplemented the exchange with farm stays. Our kids came home with a love of Horrid Henry after listening to the Quinn children's CDs on all of those car journeys!" says Valerie.

Marcus Cornelius, the third leg in this house swap deal, stayed at the Quinns home with his friend, Lance Anderson. "Lance and I are both divorced and this was my second visit to Ireland and his first. We stayed for a few days in Dublin, but spent most of the time in their holiday home in Balmoney, Co Wexford. Frank brought us sailing on his Oceanis 41 and that was a real experience.

"My holiday home is in the foothills of the White Mountains and in the centre of the lake and ski country. I didn't do a lot of preparation for the exchange; I just had the house cleaned and yard taken care of. I've done maybe as many as 20 home exchanges without a bad experience," says Marcus.

You don't have to live in a tourist hotspot, either. Pether Larsson, who swapped his 1901 house on the Swedish coast with a family of six who live on the outskirts of Portlaoise, says: "We found Portlaoise and the surrounding area more than enough for us. We took it slow and looked around Laois. A day trip to Kilkenny was the furthest we got. Just walking around Portlaoise and visiting the leisure centre, for example, was great," he adds.

It seems everyone is proud of their castle, even if it is only termporarily theirs.