Doing Air BnB is all very well ... unless you live in a home that’s a biohazard

How do self-employed people manage the no income thing if they stop working for any reason, asks Suzanne Harrington

Obviously, we never get sick. But we do need the occasional holiday — so how does that work? How do you go away without coming home to your house being repossessed?

“Do Air BnB,” says a friend who does Air BnB. She lives in an airy, uncluttered house with a small Schnauzer. I live in functioning mayhem with a multitude of kids, dogs and lodgers. So I do an experiment — I look around my house through the eyes of an imaginary Air BnB guest. Within moments, I am breathing into a paper bag as the full horror sinks in. It’s like one of those Channel 5 documentaries where they have to send in the team with the industrial bin liners and latex gloves.