We are a homely and clean houseshare close to Balham, the Claphams, and have good transport links. You’ll love it because of the neighbourhood, big kitchen & lounge, and sweet dogs. It is essential that you love to be around small dogs, as I run doggie daycare and boarding so there are many here! The room is generally not available for very short stays and further details about this are in the listing. Couples are welcome. Please tell me about yourself in the message. NON-SMOKING guests only. The space Please note that the room is only available from 11 Sept - 15 Oct. My permanent tenant will leave on 10 Sept and I will be moving out and overseas around the 20th of Oct. This is the only reason it is available. Ideally I want only one, maybe 2 guests to cover the entire period, as I cannot spend much time on waiting for guests and prepping the rooms when I have so much else to do in the next 6 weeks. The house will be getting packed up, but your room will be unaffected before 15 Oct. Some things in the kitchen may get packed before this, but all of the essentials will still be there for you to use at your leisure. The lounge will also likely be less accessible than usual due to packed boxes. This is just something that it is only fair to let you know before you reserve the room. Due to the dog boarding, and that barking can be spontaneous, working from home (unless on the odd occasion, which I can manage) is not ideal. This is a lovely 4-bed Victorian house, built in the late 1800s, but with all the modern amenities. John Torode (the celebrity Masterchef judge) even rented this house for a year after his most recent divorce around 2014 and he created a cookbook while here called “My Kind of Food”. The cover photo was in my kitchen and there are a few other pictures throughout showing other aspects (in case that kind of thing is of interest to you)! We have 4 small dogs in the house who love people and will be delighted to welcome you. There are almost always an additional 2-4 small dogs here for a grooming session (carried out in the far corner of the lounge a few times per month), daycare, or overnight boarding, so if you love four legged friends, then you will be happy here! That said, they do bark when people come in and they want some attention, so if you would be simply TOLERATING the DOGS, then I suggest for all our sake that you find a different listing. *See "SEE OTHER THINGS TO NOTE" section and photos if you wish to know more about the individual dogs. This is a 4 bed Victorian house located in the lovely Balham area of London. There are 2 lovely girls who are permanent tenants here, as well as myself. However, one is leaving on 19 Sept and the other will leave when she secures her next place to live. Therefore, there may be other airbnb guests here during your stay. Rest assured that I am home most of the time and no one will have access to your room in your absence except myself in the very unlikely case of an emergency. Everyone here is very clean, considerate and friendly, and we strive to be respectful of one another. We get on very well and love to share a good conversation, a meal, music or a film sometimes. Equally, however, we also enjoy our alone time, and we'd hope for similar traits in our guests. Your room has fewer reviews than my others because it has almost always had permanent tenants in it (because it is the best room) - and all of my rooms have had the same permanent tenants since covid let up, hence no reviews for a long while. It is a comfortable double with all linens provided. It has a very tall built-in 2-door wardrobe with shelving and rail/hangers, a further section up even higher for storage, and another 1 door wardrobe with shelving/baskets. There is good sized desk with a rolling, adjustable office chair (in place of the folding one shown in the photos), and a 3 drawer chest underneath it. The room also has a chest of drawers (wider than the one shown in the photos), bedside table with 3 drawers, and, of course, a comfy double bed, which has risers to allow more storage space underneath it. This room has so much storage for anything you could possibly bring! Your window faces our lovely enclosed garden, where you get to watch visiting birds and the cheeky family of squirrels go about their day from your desk chair :) There is also a folding gate that you can put in front of your bedroom door if you wish to have it open but not have the dogs come in to visit, as they like to say hello when they can :) Finally, there is currently a spare 19 inch tv if you would like to have it in the room, which you can connect your laptop by HDMI or watch freeview channels via the aerial. There is common space in the large lounge/diner with Sky TV and large kitchen/diner with all necessary amenities, and another tv connected to Sky, and your own cupboard. The refrigerators and freezers are shared, but you will have dedicated space. There is a shared full bath with rain effect power shower on 2nd floor and separate toilet on ground floor. Both communal TVs are also logged into Prime TV and Netflix, etc, though no purchases are allowed on these and you would be responsible for paying for anything extra you got (and I would need to be asked first). There are also Alexa devices in the kitchen and lounge, which you are welcome to use to listen to music, etc. There is a nice garden with furniture and a charcoal bbq and a fire pit if you wish to use it (you may need to purchase your own charcoal and fire wood if you use the pit frequently). General cleanliness and tidiness is important here, as there are other tenants - so consideration in common areas and toilets is paramount. This includes wiping down surfaces in the kitchen each time you use it, not leaving marks in the toilet, and i your bedroom, please be mindful of ensuring carpets and furniture are kept in good order and that no perishable/unsealed food/dirty dishes are left in there. Guest access Living room, dining room, kitchen, garden, bathrooms During your stay I am generally available to help you find anything you need or to give advice on London if you'd like it. I am usually in the lounge in the evenings with the pups and am often happy to share a glass of wine and/or chat if you are in the mood or wish to snuggle the dogs. Other things to note BREAKFAST Breakfast consists of tea, coffee and selection of cereals with skimmed milk. I am open to getting you a particular cereal if you're staying for a while and it is time to purchase more. However, if you have very specific requirements or preferences, please be aware that I will be unable to accommodate this. Please note the "coffee maker" is a coffee press rather than an automated coffee machine that Americans will be used to. There is also pour over coffee and latte/cappuccino sachets usually available. CHECK IN TIMES As a general rule, the earliest check-in would be 2pm. However, if you needed to leave your luggage or if I could make the room available for you sooner then I will. If you have a flight which will get you here at a difficult hour (i.e. the wee hours), then please make sure to tell me this before booking the room or check with me before booking your flights if you have not yet done so. We will likely be able to make it work, but an approximate arrival time is REQUIRED (i.e. 1 hour window) to allow me to plan my life around bookings. Please understand that I am definitely not a hotel and cannot wait in 24 hours per day so if you are significantly delayed, etc, then you may not be able to enter immediately depending on my schedule. I have found this to be a common issue with Airbnb bookings and I do expect that you will keep me informed of significant delays as a courtesy. If you would like to stay beyond the 10am check-out then please ask me as soon as possible. There may be an additional small charge and it could impact my ability to plan for the next guest, but I will certainly accommodate when I can. DOGS Despite your room having a folding gate that you can put in front of your door to keep dogs out whenever you want to, it is very important to me that you enjoy dogs, and not just tolerate their presence. They will bark when they meet you (though they are very friendly - put out your hand to pet them and they will be delighted), but the more they get to know you, the less they will bark upon your entrance (though, sometimes they will bark with joy and excitement after they know you!). If you just walk past them and close the bedroom door, never interacting with them, then they will not get to know you and bark at you like the stranger you are to them whenever you enter. (For those who know dogs, I’m sure they know that is a common sense statement). Please remember that this is my home and theirs, and we all want to feel comfortable here rather than as if we are somehow diminishing the quality of someone's stay by being here (unfortunately, I had 1 guest for a month repeatedly make me feel this way despite my checking on her full acceptance of the dogs before taking the booking). If you have ever been referred to as a "dog-lover", then you will really enjoy it here, and we would love to welcome you. If you truly are not a fan of dogs, then do everyone (including yourself) a favour and find a different place so that everyone will be comfortable and someone who will like them will get to stay here and enjoy it! It is a busy house due to the nature of my business, but also a very wonderful one! :) NUMBER OF GUESTS You must either make sure the booking request is for 2 guests, or inform me in your initial message if there will be another guest for a portion of the stay so that a manual charge can be added for to cover those dates. CLEANING/ENTERING THE ROOM For stays over 1 week I used to enter the room for general cleaning (quick dust and vacuum) and to change linens. However, most guests seem to wish to do this for themselves instead, so I now operate on this basis. Please let me know if you would like me to do it and I will be happy to accommodate. COMMON SPACE It is your responsibility to ensure that the common space is kept clean and neat enough for others to enjoy as well. Thorough cleaning is done once per week, and I gladly do more on occasions that require it, but on a day to day basis, please ensure you do the basics. Please remember, this is a home, not a hotel or your mum's house. I am not OCD, but when I have guests who are messy it can get a bit awkward and frustrating to have to go behind them constantly cleaning up their mess so that another guest or tenant does not have to do it. What this means practically is probably clear to most, but I have listed within house rules the most common ones which I try to mention upon check-in. We are a very clean and considerate home and we are looking only for guests who are naturally also this way, and appreciate those qualities in others and their space. IF BRINGING A CAR Please be aware that without a permit, street parking here has a MAXIMUM STAY of 4 hours at a time and is only free OUTside the hours of 9.30-17.30 on Mon-Sat (bank holidays are free). If you do wish to bring your car then I will need to know this prior to booking, as I am limited in passes for the property and will need to have enough time to apply for it. The cost from the council which will be recharged to you and must be paid prior to its purchase is: £9.90 (daily) or £60.80 (weekly).* *Costs may change time to time from the council and this will be passed to you once I have looked them up prior to your booking. SECURITY CAMERAS If this is a concern for you, please note that they are located to cover the front door (outside) and inside door, including part of the staircase. This is mainly so I can see what is happening at the front door and keep an eye on the dogs in the hallway, where they insist on waiting for me if I am out. The Alexa devices do allow me to very rarely drop-in on the kitchen and living room, but a sound will always alert you that I have done this (as well as 30 seconds when the camera is not on) and the cameras are not pointed in a way that I can see anything except what is right in front of them at the time. In a few years I think I have only done this twice on occasions when someone was not picking up their phone and I needed to give them urgent information, so it is certainly a rare occurrence. SECURITY DEPOSIT Please note that the listed security deposit is the maximum charge which would only occur if I reported damage to Airbnb within 24 of your leaving. I have never once had to use it at all and do not expect to do so. A NOTE ON THE ONE BAD REVIEW ON THIS ROOM (2019) This is the only bad review I have ever received, so draw your own conclusions from that. Everything that was complained about was written in the description and unfortunately it was not read, and I did not check well enough before accepting the reservation (which I am now meticulous about - the experience was very unpleasant for everyone). Unfortunately, she also managed to get my response to her review removed due to it noting that airbnb got involved and were very much on my side - because apparently you cannot state the outcome of any airbnb involvement(!), though a reviewer's lies can stay public. I was not able to leave another response not noting the outcome of airbnb's involvement... You can click on my photo to see all other reviews from my other rooms, which have all had more guests than this one, as it is usually taken by a permanent lodger.