This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
Hi @Joan,
I hope you are doing well.
Excuse me for jumping in here, but isn’t it possible for regular programmers to learn COBOL? Is it very hard or time-consuming to do so, or do they just want experts?
I hope everyone else is doing well too, all things considered.
Faheem (from Bombay). Still alive, for now.
Hi Faheem,
Lovely to hear your voice after such a silence, and very glad to learn that you are still with us. I am so saddened with what is happening in Mumbai; people living in the slum(s) must be terrified.
I will ask Mr Joan about the COBAL stuff but he’s currently up a ladder, fixing a new light fitting. One wouldn’t want to disturb such activity…
Will come back to you.
Mr J says that in essence, yes, but he suggests hooking up with a few mates or colleagues to do so, as those needing the skill set, mainly US, wouldn’t want just one person on their own.
Here you go:-
Hope this is useful, and good luck!
Hi Joan (and everyone else),
Lovely to hear from you too. And thank you for the quick reply. Yes, I guess I haven’t been active on this forum much, in the last year or two. All sorts of things to do.
I had quite a busy December, January and February. My last guest left on 15th March, having cut her visit short. And she flew (or should I say fled) home to Germany. And the only other guest I was scheduled for on 26 March also cut his visit short and went home to Namibia around the middle of March. A good move, because by the 26th international air traffic to and from India had basically ceased. But he didn’t try to take his money back (not paid via Airbnb). He said he’d leave it as a “credit” for future visits. Let’s hope that there will be a future in this business. So I didn’t actually have any cancellations at all. Yay.
We live in interesting times.
Yes, so I’m alive, which I suppose is cause for celebration. Though I’ve had long term bronchial issues, mostly allergy related, I think. But relatively quiescent in India, for some reason. So if I got this virus, it might kill me. So let’s hope I don’t.
And it’s kind of depressing to notice how little difference being stuck indoors for a month (or whatever it is) makes to me. I guess I don’t get out much. It reminds of the protagonist of “Zombieland”, who remarks early in the film that probably the reason he is still alive is that he never had any friends of close family. If you’ve not seen that film, it’s fun.
I thought Linux Magazine was dead? And I’m not sure why you’re linking to it. And I wasn’t personally planning to go into the COBOL programming business (though never say never). I was just curious. But money is good and a job is good. It’s beats not having them, at any rate.
Stay safe, everyone.
Regards from India’s Coronavirus epicenter (yes, really).
Though it’s not moving as fast as one might expect. But India has been under lockdown for two weeks, so that may be making a difference.
I rent out one of my rooms to travellers and locum tenens. They are traveling medical professionals who are under contract with companies who place medical professionals of all levels and professions into contract assignments at hospitals, rehabs, nursing, and the like. The HR in hospitals don’t so this anymore. I vet my renters via their short term contract with that staffing agency, and by looking them up on social media. Travellers have back ground checks and the like who’s info is available if you contact the staffing agency. Afterall, they want their travellers to get the job and stay on that contract, so that the agency gets their enormous cut.
Typically contracts are for 90 days, but a PT I had at my last house, lost her rehab job after 30 days due to the facility hiring a FT physical therapist. I’m easy going and so she moved on to another city for another contract.
This above is for education only. I, listening to the wise sages here, blocked my Air listing until mid July, and have snoozed my Furnished Finder listing for the time being.
Update: For anyone wondering about the legitimacy of this covid responders program and/or worrying about scammers, I checked it out.
First, a lot of the bookings are coming from partner-organizations, like the International Medical Corp, so those folks are already vetted and legit. Scammers can’t just sign up for these organizations.
It says in the information that they are verifying these responders. So, I went through the steps to sign-up as an individual responder (but didn’t complete it at the end of course). They were definitely going to verify my employment as I was prompted to upload several documents (employer information, etc) to complete my sign-up. FWIW.
I also maintain that it will be so so simple and easy to verify these professionals once you have their name anyway.
edit: spelling
“If it still exists, it’s probably on-line by now”.
I was merely doing (unusually) what Mr J asked me to do, i.e. sending the link he gave me for you.
Perhaps @NordlingHouse may find it useful.
Actually, there is apparently one here in Juneau, with a contractor that does work for the state. I might consider it if a couple of the folks that I used to work with there have now retired. It was a hidebound bureaucracy full of backstabbers just holding out to retirement, who got really upset if someone questioned their previous code. I was the bug fixer when I got hired, which didn’t make me popular since I was fixing other folks’ mistakes or solving the unsolved problems.
And it was an office where people loved useless meetings full of people that didn’t have a clue about technical issues. I don’t do those kind of meetings if I can help it, and I had a lot to get done. I should have started looking at other agencies once I figured that out, but instead I stayed too long and then couldn’t find a similar position elsewhere in state govt so I went to work doing something entirely different.
Life in the public sector as I knew it too. I didn’t know whether to laugh in recognition, or shudder with disgust at my own, similar memories when I read your post.
I spent the last five years of my career freelancing as an interim, brought in to clean up failing health and social care departments, usually after a safeguarding scandal. At least I have the memories of pruning out the dead wood; now that was fun, if sometimes harrowing!
You can do this and maintain your short term status (and be much less likely to end up with squatters).
IMO, Check your local requirements for what makes a short term vs. long term rental.
Here in NY State, for example, the renter can be considered long term if they’re paying month to month or have a lease for more than a month. (and there is other stuff as well, but those are the two basics.)
So, for us in NY we have to be careful in our paperwork and procedures so as not to cross over into full-time (long-term) rental legal hell.
It’s a Rental Agreement, not a lease.
They are never “tenants” - They are always “renters” - even better is “short term renters.”
It’s not a Property or Home, it’s a Vacation Rental Property or, even better, Short Term Vacation Property
We technically don’t rent for more than four weeks, 28 nights. At the very least we consider our monthly rate based on 28 nights - not 30 or 31 which is the standard for full time leases.
If we do rent for a longer period (like three month ski-season), they have to pay it all up front.
(full time rentals are typically paid each month).
Take a full month’s deposit.
Depending on how long is considered a full time rental in your area (in some areas it’s 30 days, in others it’s six months for example) then write the term in your agreement up to one day before that date.
Then, write in the agreement that you’ll offer them first opportunity to renew.
This way you’re never hitting the long term rental mark and they can feel comfortable knowing they can stay longer.
BTW, have them sign a new Rental Agreement every time they re-up… with the new start and end dates.
And they should be required to let you know at least a week before the end of the term of the current agreement if they want to renew . That will give you time to work with other inquiries if you have them.
it’s a little research and reworking of your paperwork, but it can be worth it so you can a.) make your property available in a time of need and b.) create some income to at least keep your business alive at a time when you might otherwise have NO income.