MAEVE BINCHY wrote a book about it, Cameron Diaz starred in a film about it and I have finally dipped my toe into its waters. I am on a home-exchange website – a bit like internet dating for buildings. Strangers move into your house, you move into theirs and you each have free accommodation for your holiday.
Until now the thought had filled me with dread. Display pictures of my bathroom and bedrooms for people across the globe to see? Imagine them coping with a dodgy shower, fungus between the tiles, cat-shredded carpet and curtains that don’t fit.
But as I waved my sister off back to England after a short holiday here, I thought, well, maybe it isn’t so bad, and people do like to visit Ireland. My sister’s visit had been preceded by a thorough clear-up, and the house was looking well. Not as well as it looked when I took the pictures for the website, though. Years of comparing holiday brochures with reality had taught me a few tricks.
I forced the kids to do a quick mow of the lawn, then waited until the sky was blue. I angled the shot so that a tree blotted out the rotting porch and the houses on either side looked as if they might be part of ours. I urged the boys to tidy their rooms. This met with resistance. I went in all bin bags blazing, swept shelves and desktops into them and threw clothes on the landing. Then I waited for the sun to peep out and rushed in for the kill – a snap of what might have been an empty, bright hotel room. I did this throughout the house – anything that didn’t pass the brochure test was piled high in the hall and on the landing.
I put a cloth over the rotting table in the back garden and dusted off a couple of sunloungers. Hard to hide the untended state of the garden – the result of an exuberant Labrador and a misguided attempt on my part to grow vegetables, but, again, sunshine and blue sky were forgiving.
When I looked at the resulting photographs at the end of the day – all this took about six hours – I nearly wanted to live here myself.
Before this frenzy of activity I had browsed some of the listings on a home-exchange site and found a house in the Murcia region of Spain that seemed perfect for a family with teenagers. It had an orchard, a pool, a log cabin and a basement games room with sound system. Set in mountains near a small town, it was also near beaches and a Ryanair airport. My nieces and my sister could come as well. I imagined us spending the whole of the next summer holidays there.
So I paid my subscription and posted my pictures and description, concluding triumphantly: “Thriving suburban area, safe and friendly, with buzzing capital city in one direction, mountain wilderness and beaches in the other. Perfect holiday location.” Stillorgan never sounded so good.
After posting only one picture I was interrupted. When I came back to the computer a few minutes later I saw that my home had already been viewed three times. By the end of the day it was 45, the end of the next day 96. Six requests for an exchange came in during the first two days. In my mind I had travelled to San Francisco, Texas, Spain and the outback of Australia.
In turn I e-mailed requests for seven exchanges in Spain and France. One refused and the others never replied. I heard nothing from the house in Murcia where I’d imagined the cousins splashing in the pool while my sister and I sipped margaritas by the barbecue.
The cost of air fares ruled out two amazing offers in California, as well as one in western Australia that had featured in a television programme about house swaps.
I went back to a description of a house in Madrid. It was detached, with four bedrooms and a garden, was near the centre of the city, recently renovated and originally built for the staff of the royal palace nearby.
I said yes to it, but the dates they suggested didn’t fit in with Irish school holidays, so I asked if they could reschedule. Flights to Madrid around October can be had for next to nothing at the moment, but I’m wondering about the cost of recoating the bath, plugging the wet rot in the porch and generally keeping up with the Rodriguezes.
I needn’t have worried. The Rodriguezes never got back to me. But whatever happens, I can browse other people’s houses, glimpse their family set-up and daydream. The subscription might be worth it just for that.
Six months on our house has had 737 views, but nothing definite has materialised. I’ve been offered apartments, but I want houses with pools. There’s the possibility of one for August 2011, but that seems a very long way off.
I click through the photographs of our house on the website and read the list of nearby attractions. When did I last go to the Dublin mountains myself? Or admire the coastline from Killiney Hill? I decide to take myself up on my own offer and holiday at home this year.
