Remembering your lodgers with a guest book

Lodgers are generally nice ..

I have written quite a bit here about problem lodgers, eviction and the like, as these are things which worry people, and which have therefore been popular topics on the blog. However it is important to remember that most lodgers are lovely.

I had six years of taking in lodgers, before I got married. Most of them were charming. They were mainly students from our local university (UEA), although later I put up a few new staff members from my firm (this was before I went solo) at the request of the HR people.

I had a great time with them. With the foreign students (mostly Spanish, Austrian and German) who were here on English language courses, I had to provide meals and talk to them, which was great. Many of them also borrowed my books – Winnie-the-Pooh was very popular I remember, and most of them bought a copy to take home with them. Some of them took me out for a meal before they left to say thank you.

So I am really glad I got them all to write in my visitors book before they went. They enjoyed it too, and always read what my other visitors had written before.

The guest, or visitors book

You may be able to get a visitors, or guest book at your local stationers or department store. However if you can’t find one don’t worry. Any hardback notebook will do. You will need to have four columns, one for the date, one for their name, one for their address and one (the biggest) for comments. For a small book you will need to take it across both pages or you will not have enough room.

I used to bring out the book the day before they left, and leave it with them for a while.

Have you had good experiences with your lodgers? Do you keep a visitors book to remember them by? What sorts of things did they write?

PS I had a quick look on Amazon and found this >> Visitor Book which you might want to consider – there is a recommendation from a landlord!