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If you’re looking to make extra income, renting out a room in your home can be a great way to do that. It can offer you passive income, and can even mean having some company (if you wind up befriending your roommate). Should you have more space than you need and less disposable cash than you want, renting out a room makes a lot of sense.
Of course, renting a room is very different from every other form of income in one major way: it means allowing your “customer” into your personal space. All day. Every day. Not many other passive forms of income – like investing or renting out your car – require that. In the best-case scenario, you adore your tenant and even become friends. More moderate scenarios involve a tenant who is a nuisance, plays music too loud, makes a mess, and is antisocial. We’ve all heard those horror stories. But, that’s nothing compared to a tenant who puts your safety at risk.
Anyone renting a room in their home must think about their personal safety when choosing a tenant, and when setting ground rules around the home. But women living alone must be particularly cautious about this. Applicants with less-than-good intentions may target single women for scams, or worse. Here are important tips for remaining safe if you’re a single woman renting a room in your home.
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Ask if you can run a background check
This is a very common process and any applicant should be comfortable with it. If your applicant kicks up any sort of fuss or refuses to allow you to run a background check, move on to the next applicant. It’s never a good sign when someone takes issue with you running a background check. If you do run a background check and find something that you don’t like, move on to the next tenant.
