984731

Homeaway has been the site that has taken our cottage home away from us all summer.  You can find our cottage on Homeaway.com by entering our cottage rental number 984731.   Homeaway is a great resource for folks looking to list their properties as a rental.  Easy to set up, nice interface, and extremely user friendly.  For a nominal fee they take all the hassle out of finding prospective renters, booking, billing, etc.  We have had a great experience communicating with renters and having all the emails, reminders, and payment bills taken care of for us by the site.   Renters can check availability on the site, learn what a property has to offer, read past renters reviews, and email the owner with any questions they have before they book or prior to their stay.

Will we use it again?  Most likely.  Although next year we definitely don't want to rent the cottage as much.  We want to have it for weekend escapes.  Rod dreams of extra long weekends with short trips back home for work.  Perfect timing for me to have friends up midweek with their kids for a little escape.

Will we rent again?  Time will tell.  It went really well for us this year.  We did a lot of organizing at the beginning of the summer and perhaps because of that we came back to a completely organized house.  The kitchen had been in shambles when we first bought the house.  When we arrived after 7 weeks of renters we were relieved to find all but 3 or 4 items in their place.  Due to the fact that the house is a rental we don't have a lot of "stuff" to organize and misplace.  We have books and games, sheets and towels, and a few tchotchkes.  Really the only thing that we have noticed out of place is pillows.  An indoor pillow outside?!  A few pillows moved from one room to the next.

The kitchen is very well stocked thanks to the previous owners and we have added anything that we have noticed is missing as well.  There is a lot in this tiny kitchen.  It makes cooking and entertaining easy which is good since the nearest restaurants are about 15-20 minutes away.  Now that everything has a place in the kitchen renters seem to be able to find and put away things easier.  I always said the thing that would make me stop renting the cottage was sharing the kitchen.  But hey after 7 weeks I have to say that people left things clean, organized and were very respectful of our house, our furniture and most importantly our kitchen.  They left the yard in great shape too even though every renter had a dog come at some point during their stay in the cottage.

We are thinking we will rent our cottage in the future for weeks we are going to be away and could use the income to not only pay for taxes and the mortgage on this house but also help pay for our family vacations. We would most like to have friends and family stay here.  And the few renters we have we would like to have a history with the cottage.  Friends of friends, or friends of family or people that have fallen in love with Duckhead and want it to be part of their family traditions in years to come...