Meet the Bristol residents renting out their properties and rooms through Airbnb – a network that offers travellers unique places to rent from local hosts in over 190 countries

Helen loves to travel. She recently switched careers from organic farming to horticultural therapist. She has a Lego-playing son called Jake and a 13-year-old dog called Tui. There are pictures: Helen in a red cardi (and a bee-striped hat), her blue-painted kitchen, a vivid sunset over Temple Meads taken from her Totterdown roof terrace. Her home, she says, is very handy for the station. ‘It’s very Bristol.’

I find all this on Helen Trowsdale’s Airbnb listing in which she offers the use of a ‘unique double loft space’ in the tiny attic above her flat. She charges £26 a night. And though the space looks a little cramped – a mattress tucked into the tent-like shallows of a low sloping roof – she has a constant flow of paying guests. ‘In the summer, I had people staying nearly every night of the week,’ says Helen. ‘It’s very busy – and it’s not even a proper room.’

Now I’m doing the maths. £26 a night is a nice little earner – and Helen’s unique loft space is one of the cheaper rooms on the site. With the right space, you can earn a lot more (a room on Gloucester Road is selling for £40 a night) and all you have to do to join Airbnb’s ‘sharing economy’ is to stick a few words and pictures on the  website and wait for the bookings. But is it really that easy?

In essence, yes. Airbnb’s global network of home-stay B&Bs – which started in 2007 as a San Francisco start-up – is now worth billions. Every two seconds someone, somewhere, books a spare room on Airbnb. The question is, how do you make sure that your room is one of them. 

Firstly, it helps if you can offer some unique selling point or a great location. Helen, for example, sells her home as ‘the top flat of the top house at the top of the steepest residential street in England’. It also helps to include beguiling house-porn photography – allowing people to surf in and out of your space, making forensic analyses of your décor, your duvet covers or, in Helen’s case, the ‘vintage pipe work and old-school flush’. Her aforementioned sunset photo is a winner.

On the other side if the city, Gill Lanham ‘welcoming and fun’ charges £75 a night for a ‘Quirky vaulted double en-suite room’ on a subterranean floor of Clifton’s iconic Royal York Crescent. As a semi-professional host, she has her own website but she gets 50 per cent of her bookings from Airbnb. The pictures show mood lighting and white-washed brickwork, a row of gold cherubs perched on the edge of claw-foot bathtub, a pile of pillows on a vintage wrought-iron bed. ‘People like the space because it’s unusual, and has independent access and its own bathroom,’ she says. She gives them fluffy towels, Sanctuary Spa toiletries and a hairdryer. Breakfast, she points out, is not a prerequisite of Airbnb-ing.

Over at Paintworks, Joe Young’s ‘Stunning 2 Bed Loft Conversion’ offers self-catering for up to five people in an apartment next to his own. ‘I stayed in an Airbnb in New York,’ he says. ‘And I felt so inspired by the idea, I came home and bought the flat next door.’

Joe, who runs online gallery, See No Evil, shows off his stunning conversion in a series of professional photos. Metal staircase, yellow kettle and matching toaster. folded towels on striped duvet covers. A mural – a copy of Beastie Boys’ Licensed to III album cover painted by Bristol street artist, Jody – looms across a white wall above a ‘massive industrial dining table’. Joe’s been Airbnb-ing since March, and with roughly 80 per cent occupancy at £140 a night, he’s thinking of giving up the day job and turning it into a business. ‘I really enjoy it,’ he says. ‘I enjoy meeting people and there is a great community spirit.’

But isn’t it a bit risky – opening your home to strangers? ‘I’ve never had anyone horrible,’ says Helen, the only one of the three to share her living space with paying guests she is the more typical host. ‘I’ve met some brilliant people, and I’ve been surprised by the level of trust. In the spirit of Airbnb trust is key.’

Airbnb hosting tips

• Keep it real: don’t oversell the space (or over-price). The trick is to find like-minded people who get your life, like your style and enjoy your home, quirks and all.

• Be sensible: Airbnb encourages the use of smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors and other home safety measures.

• Think like a pro: Airbnb suggests providing an ‘in-room beverage station’ (that’s a tea tray in English), or sprucing up the room with fresh-cut flowers, quality bed-linen and ‘fabulous shower gel’; try a bit of towel art or toilet paper origami.

• Lay down the law: there is space on the website for house rules (no shoes in the bedroom, no smoking, no eating in bed etcetera).

• Take comfort: Airbnb’s commission (or ‘service fee’ charged to the guest at 6-12% of the room rate) includes a Host Guarantee with up to £600,000-worth of cover  – just in case your guest trashes the place.

• Keep up: competition is stiff. In the UK alone, there are now 35,000 Airbnb listings.

• Take advice from those that know: ‘Keep the room clean,’ suggests Helen. ‘Keep it warm, share your love of Bristol and be prepared to do a lot of laundry.’

www.airbnb.co.uk

Images from Airbnb