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I just rented to a traveling nurse for a three month assignment. She’s been there two days, so I text to check on her.
“I hope you don’t think I’m crazy, but have you heard any footsteps or had doors swing open by themselves?”
It’s a little late for Halloween, but it is a 100 year old building that’s been mostly empty for almost a month. She’s new here, the house is strange, anything could be passing through. So we go over, she’s heard footsteps & her bedroom door swung open by itself in the middle of the night & she’s afraid to be there alone. So we talk her down, and smudge the entire house with sage, twice where all this happened.
She’s staying at a hotel tonight to get some rest in a neutral area, but said she may not feel comfortable enough to complete her three month stay. Her rental contract is written w/no fee for leaving early, as I want to be accommodating in case her contract gets cut short.
If she wants to leave I’ll only charge her for the two nights she’s stayed and be very sad about the lost revenue. I don’t think she’s making it up b/c she found a cheaper place, it’s just…odd. Anyone had anything like this happen?
Well, I don’t think you should ‘plant such suggestions’ by texting that to your guest. Now look what happened!
Anything could be passing through? Really?
Of course, I’m kidding. I realize she texted you this (though you left it a little ambiguous). No, nothing like this has happened to us – and we live in MA, not that far from Salem.
No reason to be sad. You totally signed up for that. And I don’t understand why?
I’ve been traveling healthcare before. Even when a contract is cut short it’s not cut short to the day. We almost always get a couple of weeks, worst-case scenario maybe only a week (but it would be very unusual). The only reason to get one-day notice is if you get fired
You’re really not doing yourself any favors by not having any fee at all. It will attract the wrong people. It will only attract people who don’t want to commit or want to take advantage. You’ll attract flakes and scammers. And serious drug users. With a huge budget. I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear but it’s true.
We’ve had the most perfect amazing tenants (all traveling healthcare) in two different apartments for three years with a .0004% vacancy rate (e.g. one day to flip about every 9 months). And we charge a full month’s deposit and require 30 days notice to end the lease. I’d certainly lower the fee (shhhhh) for any of the nurses who’ve stayed with us if they got into a jam. But that’s only because I’d want to because they’ve already been awesome tenants. I don’t have to if they weren’t. So I’m not attracting the wrong type. (But I shudder to think of some of the people I’ve dealt with). I don’t get the type that are looking to take advantage. I get normal people working hard who need a home away from home. That is what you should have too.
You may think that renting to traveling healthcare is different than having Airbnb guests. And you’re right! You have to be even more careful and more diligent than you would be with Airbnb guests. There is so much more risk. It is a whole different group that you’re dealing with.
There are so many more bad traveling healthcare “guests” than there are guests in general. I’ve worked in healthcare for almost 35 years. I’ve traveled as a professional before. And I’m also still on the forums. So I know for sure that your generosity is not only being taken advantage of, it’s being targeted. I’m sorry but it’s true. You can’t treat this differently than taking on airbnb guests. You have to be on top of it. I hope this helps a little bit at least. Sorry for the speech
My house is 210 years old. I had a couple come to stay. He was edgy about the house being haunted. His wife and I teased him and they stayed the night as planned. In the morning he told us that the light in the guest room went on in the middle of the night. It was my daughter’s old room so I asked her about it. She said “Oh that happened all the time”. I’ve got my nephew, the electrician, working on it and he’s quite sure it’s just a worn connection that he’ll fix. Still, a lot has happened in this house in all that time so who knows.
No apologies needed, thank you for schooling me in the ways of traveling health care professionals. I’m going to modify my lease for Furnished Finder, and if she leaves early, consider this a learning experience.
I stayed in a 10 room traditional bed and breakfast in Fredericksburg VA that was orginally built in the 1770’s. I was the only guest there. The host was in a basement apartment. I asked about ghosts and was assured they had ghosts. Alas, my best chance to be visted by a ghost and none bothered.
I’m kind of agnostic on ghosts but if they exist I’ve decided they don’t waste their precious limited energy on manifesting to people who won’t believe in them. In short, the guest is to blame if a ghost shows up at your place.
The best recommendation I’ve gotten for odd house attributes was “turn it into a feature.” “We don’t believe it, but some guests report greetings from friendly ghosts in this century-old house, with a door opening or lights flickering here and there.”
That reminds me of when a friend of mine was staying in my guest room for a couple of weeks. I sometimes get bats flying in open windows at night and personally, bats totally freak me out, I hate them (not as creatures doing their own thing, I just don’t want them anywhere near me).
A bat kept flying in the guest room, but my friend wasn’t freaked out at all. She was one of those new-agey types who was studying shamanism and said, “This is so interesting, I wonder what this bat energy I’m attracting is all about”.
This is brilliant. The lights flicker in our Airbnb bedroom, which is 100% an electrical problem and 100% going to be a pain in the butt to address. The building is about a hundred years old. So you have proposed the perfect solution: I can attribute the flickering lights to ghosts and not have to pay for an electrician, and maybe I’ll even attract intrigued ghost hunters while I’m at it!
GHOSTS:
We don’t believe it, but some guests report greetings from friendly ghosts in this century-old apartment building, with the bedroom lights flickering here and there. Quirk of the electrical wiring or supernatural visitation? You decide!
That is exactly what I think of when lights flicker. I’ve had some experiences with ghosts but they still aren’t what I think of when lights flicker. I think, hmmm, guess that electrical panel needs to be upgraded
Our house is 125. We had to do a lot of electrical work so I totally understand.
Same here, our house is 122, replaced every outlet and replaced the electrical box with 200 amp service.
To add another story, our home does have a ghost. When we moved in, I’d stand at the foot of our staircase next to the newel post and I’d just get this vague feeling of disapproval. My husband is much more sensitive to these things than I am. So he communicated (or whatever) with the spirit. A former German housekeeper who didn’t approve of us having pets in the house and was very proud of the way she polished the woodwork. No other problems, I always get a strong feeling of warmth and approval now when I polish the woodwork.
I’ve written about this before here; I get a 5% discount with Proper insurance for having this device that monitors whether arc-on or other dangerous things are going on with your electricity.
