Crew house rules that keep everyone happy

A crew house is a normal house on a normal street, borrowed by working people for a few weeks or months. The neighbours did not choose to live next to a crew, the owner is trusting a group of strangers with their property, and the contractor who booked it needs the crew to stay put until the job is finished. House rules are how all three get what they need. They are not about treating grown men like children — they are about making sure the house is still there, and still available, next time the crew needs it.

This is the part of crew accommodation that nobody writes down, so here it is. We give a version of this to every crew we house, and we would rather explain it upfront than deal with it afterwards.

Bins, rubbish and bin day

The single biggest source of neighbour complaints is not noise — it is rubbish. A house of six working men produces a lot of it, Welsh councils run strict recycling and collection rules, and a missed bin day turns into overflowing bags on the pavement within a week. The fix is simple: tell the crew which day the bins go out, which bin is which, and make one person responsible each week. We put the collection days in the welcome note for that reason.

Noise and shift patterns

Crews keep working hours, and working hours are not the same as the street’s hours. A van door at 5am and boots on the pavement are normal for a crew and alarming for a neighbour with a baby. Nobody expects silence, but a few habits make a big difference: no music after 10pm, close van doors gently in the early morning, and keep the late-shift arrivals quiet. For nights crews, the opposite also applies — the people asleep at noon need the day crew to respect them too (night-shift housing covers the blackout side).

Smoking and vaping

Every house we place crews in is non-smoking inside, including vaping. Smoke damage is one of the most expensive things to put right in a property, and it is the fastest way to lose a deposit. Smoking outside is fine; a bucket of sand by the back door is better than a garden full of ends. If the crew smokes, we will look for a house with a garden or yard rather than a flat with only a front door.

Guests and who is staying

The names on the booking are the people staying. That matters for insurance, for fire safety, and for any licensing that applies to the house (HMO licensing in Wales). If the crew changes — a man goes home, a replacement arrives — just tell us, and we update it. What causes trouble is a seventh person sleeping on the sofa for a fortnight without anyone knowing. It is not about policing the crew; it is that an unlisted person in a fire is a very serious problem.

Parking and vans

Use the drive and the spaces that come with the house, and nothing else. Parking across a neighbour’s drive, filling the street with vans, or blocking a turning circle gets a crew house reported faster than anything else on this list. We confirm the number of spaces before booking for exactly this reason (van parking rules). Keep tools out of sight in the van overnight, too — tool theft from crew vans is common and targets houses where vans are obviously full.

Wet kit and keeping the house in shape

Wet work clothes and boots dumped in a bedroom are how damp and mould start in a rented house. A house with a drying room or utility space solves most of it (why drying rooms matter); where there isn’t one, kit goes in the space we point to, not on the radiators of every room. Boots off at the door saves the carpets. A weekly clean — whether the crew does it or we arrange it — keeps the house in a state where nobody minds walking back in after a twelve-hour shift.

Reporting problems early

If the boiler stops, a tap leaks or a window won’t lock, we want to know the same day. Small faults reported early are cheap and quick; small faults ignored for three weeks become damage that somebody has to pay for. Crews sometimes don’t report things because they don’t want to be blamed — the reality is that reporting it is what protects them.

Check-out

The last day is where deposits are won or lost. The short version:

• Fridge and cupboards emptied, bins out, and recycling sorted.
• Dishes washed and put away, beds stripped if asked.
• Nothing left behind — tools, PPE, chargers and paperwork included.
• Keys returned exactly as arranged, not left under a mat.
• Any damage mentioned before leaving, not found by the cleaner afterwards.

None of this is complicated, and most crews already work this way. The point of writing it down is that a crew which leaves a house in good shape gets that house again — and in a tight town, a good house you can rebook is worth more than a cheap one you can’t. Whether it is a two-man crew for a fortnight or a full gang across several houses, we brief every crew the same way (housing larger crews).