question about "house hacking" leases and expierences

[Kevin Harrison]

My wife and I are looking to rent out our 500sq/ft basement, it has all the amenities of an apartment but does not have independent access. So when renting it we would treat this like renting a room out in our home right?

What are the provisions you use in your lease for this kind of rental and how does it differ from a regular rental?

I assume that you can be more discerning in picking your tenant since you are going to be sharing some living space with them. Do you still have to give 30 days notice to vacate or if they are making the living situation uncomfortable can this be skipped?

If I could get a little insight on this from someone who is already doing it, it would be a great help.

[Nicole A.]

Well, our garage is kinda different in that there is no access to it from the inside of the house. There's a side door outside to get in it or the garage door itself. We did have a different key to open that side door.

We also--just in case!--had each door's second lock set up to work with a different key.

So for instance, we all used one key that would unlock the front storm door handle lock and dead-bolt lock of the main door behind it. But if things got crazy and we need to quickly be ready to switch locks, my husband and I had a key that would open the dead-bolt of the storm door and handle lock of the main door.  Hopefully that made sense. We never had to use it.

Ah yes, and with pets, put in your ads up front that they must be okay with dogs, cats, parrots, whatever you have.

We had a couple of interesting applicants. One was a pregnant girl...sorry, but we're not having a pregnant, and then soon, a baby in our home. Too much going on there.

We had a military guy who was so used to strict guidelines that he wanted me to put "quiet hours" in the lease and also what hours he could use the laundry. I told him that while we tend to usually be a quiet household, we're not going to have quiet hours....and that we're all adults and can do laundry whenever we feel like it. I didn't want that kind of personality in my home, so he found a better fit. ;-)