A job description on the website PerkJobs could just be the answer to all your flatting worries for next year.
Wellington residents Dan Herbison and his girlfriend, both 29, aren’t ready to start a family, but are looking for two university students to move in and become their ‘trial’ family.
Aside from the fact that the successful candidates are required to share a room in a “sizeable Berhampore house”, it doesn’t sound all that bad. Also included in the deal are luxuries like a study area, Sky TV in your room, a spa bath, all whiteware, landline telephone and wireless internet.
The couple intends to take their role as trial parents very seriously, and will “listen to problems, help with homework and drop you off at afterschool activities”. Rent will be reduced in exchange for completion of allocated ‘chores’.
Herbison says that since he placed the ad on PerkJobs there has been a lot of interest from a range of young people, including a Czech waitress, an Irish plumber and a Kiwi student, all willing to share the room and the two positions.
Student responses were mixed on the advertisement, while some found it amusing and quite a good offer, one student described it as “creepy” and “a death trap, like Josef Fritzl”.
Although the positions have been filled, don’t panic, you haven’t missed out yet. When Salient contacted Herbison he confirmed that long-term positions would be re-opening soon, but the next lot of potential children would be subject to rigorous interviewing and physical testing.
If being part of a trial family interests you, Herbison describes an ideal candidate as “laid back, likes watching America’s Hardest Prisons and won’t moan about mashed potato and kumara for dinner”.