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Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve

0:02

Camray. It's ready. Are you welcome

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to Stuff you Should Know from

0:08

house Stuff Works dot Com.

0:15

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

0:17

Clark with me as always as Charles W.

0:20

Chuck Bryant. This is stuff you should

0:22

know. Um, Extreme

0:24

Home Makeover Edition. Tip

0:27

of the hat to you as well. Just gave you a literal

0:29

tip of my cap. Yeah, you don't see people do that enough

0:31

anymore. Tip of the hat, Tip of the

0:33

hat to you. Top of the Day, Top of the Morning,

0:36

Bluck of the Irish. Let's

0:38

let's let's do this, okay, Chuck, Um,

0:41

this is going to be one of the worst ones we've ever

0:43

done. Now, it's gonna be so great. I don't

0:45

think you're right. All right, we'll see. Um

0:47

well, I guess we'll leave it to everyone to decide.

0:50

Well, because then people say that was great,

0:52

and people say it sucked. Yeah, whatever,

0:55

and we'll be no, no further along than we are

0:57

now. We have no idea. Yeah, it's just you and me and

0:59

Jerry in a little tiny room

1:01

and it were just completely isolated,

1:04

totally out of touch with reality, complete so

1:07

chuck, um, I guess we'll get this stinker

1:10

started. Huh, that sounds good

1:12

to me. Do you remember um?

1:14

Back in two thousand and six, there was a twenty

1:16

six year old guy from Montreal and named Kyle

1:19

McDonald. I don't remember him, you will

1:21

in a second. He did one of the coolest

1:23

Internet undertakings of all time. Facebook,

1:26

No, my Space, No, it's

1:29

not a business. He started

1:32

he had a red paper clip and he decided

1:34

that he wanted to trade it until he got a house.

1:36

That was great, it was awesome. Where did

1:39

he end up? He ended up getting

1:41

a house in a place called Kipling, Winnipeg.

1:43

He really got a house. Yeah, in

1:46

less than a year, and in fourteen trades, he

1:48

went from a red paper clip to a

1:51

pen that looked like a fish, so on and

1:53

so forth until he ended up

1:55

with He traded an

1:57

afternoon with Alice Cooper or

2:00

a kiss snow globe, and that's

2:02

when everything opened up. Uh. Corbin

2:05

Burnston from l A Law remember

2:07

him. He turned out to

2:10

be a huge collector of snow globes

2:13

and he wanted the snow globe, so he

2:15

offered trade the snow globe for

2:18

a paid part in a movie he was directing,

2:20

and the people of Kipling, Winnipeg

2:23

said, that's it for us. We've been waiting, this

2:25

is what we want. We will trade you a farmhouse

2:28

in our city for

2:31

that part in that Corbyn

2:33

Burnson movie. Well, who like the mayor of that

2:35

town, the town together. I'm

2:37

sure led by the mayor, but the town

2:39

got a part in the movie. I don't know.

2:41

I don't know who got a part in the movie. The

2:46

question didn't come up. Well, where it falls

2:48

apart was the guy went to Kipling, he

2:50

accepted the house because he wanted to make the trade,

2:52

and he turned around and sold it. He's like, I'm not living

2:55

here, you're kidding. I remember the people of

2:57

of Kipling, saskatch I wanted,

2:59

I say Winnipeg, I don't know, says catch

3:01

a one. Um. They were not

3:03

pleased. You know where it fell

3:05

apart from me, Corbin Burnson,

3:08

terrible, Corbin. If you're listening to

3:10

this, I apologize for Chuck. I loved you in Major

3:13

League. He was he was a spectacular

3:15

jerk, but he wasn't over the top. He

3:18

did he nailed it. Yeah, Um,

3:21

Chuck, that guy swapped a

3:23

red paper clip for a house but

3:25

that is in no way, shape or form related

3:28

to our topic today. How swapping

3:30

that has the word swap in it. That's

3:32

a nice lead in, Josh. House swapping is

3:34

more like um, swinging,

3:37

but with houses rather

3:39

than spouses. Yes,

3:41

Josh, it has actually been around since the mid nineteen

3:44

fifties, and swinging

3:46

it's been growing

3:49

like crazy about travelers

3:51

do this now and they say it's growing at about fift

3:54

a year, which I

3:56

mean, you do the math, buddy, In like six or eight years, looks

3:58

like we'll I'll be house swapping okay,

4:01

I want'll be saying hotels anymore. Um,

4:03

I don't think that's true. I mean,

4:06

yes, mathematically that does make sense.

4:08

Um, But the the problem is

4:12

people like me are kind of high

4:14

strong. You wouldn't not be a good house swapper.

4:16

No, it's not so much the person

4:18

in my house. I generally trust people,

4:21

you know, and I trust my instincts. I'm not gonna

4:23

there's some some

4:26

thrill kill colt who loves a good

4:28

blood orgy is not going to I'm not gonna lend

4:30

my house to some group like that, right, Um,

4:33

But I wouldn't feel comfortable in someone

4:36

else's house. Oh really, see

4:38

that's probably the opposite of what

4:40

most people's redicines has to

4:42

do with. I think it goes both ways, man, Yeah,

4:46

I like all swapping. Yeah,

4:48

it goes both ways. And I can tell you the one

4:50

that I would really really not feel

4:52

comfortable with really is

4:55

the hospitality exchange. Yeah. Let's let's

4:57

go ahead and talk about the three ways

4:59

that you can do this. And if you've seen

5:01

the movie The Holiday, I

5:03

have seen house swapping in action. Was

5:06

Eva Mendez in there. She was not wait,

5:09

Queen Latifa, she was not Oh

5:11

I'm thinking of last Holiday. Yes, The

5:13

Holiday starred Cameron Diaz

5:16

and Kate Winslet. She did not appear naked

5:18

in this one. But the movie The Holiday and Jack

5:20

Black and the very fetching

5:23

Jude Law, Cameron Diaz

5:25

and Kate Winslett swapped houses for

5:28

holiday, and um,

5:30

romantic high jinks ensued

5:33

obviously with Cameron

5:36

of course, with Jude Law and Kate

5:38

wins It with Jack Black and

5:40

l a to London or I'm sorry

5:42

English country cottage type of thing. So

5:45

that was house swapping in action,

5:48

and what they did was called

5:50

a traditional exchange. Yeah,

5:52

and that's when you play your vacation at the same time and

5:54

say I'll stay in your place, you stay in my place.

5:57

Yes, there's also chuck that

5:59

I think the trude was far and away the most

6:01

common and frequent type and appealing

6:04

because, um, you you all you have to

6:06

do is own a house. That's it. Well,

6:08

you own a house in a place where somebody would

6:10

want to go. Yeah,

6:13

there's there's different ways

6:15

around that. If you're in Mobile, Alabama

6:17

and you want to swap apartments with someone

6:19

in New York, you might not get a lot of action. Maybe

6:22

not, But what if the person in

6:24

New York who's swapping has

6:26

family and mobile funeral

6:29

gotta go down a mobile But by god,

6:31

I'm not going to spend a dime while I'm down there,

6:34

how swapping it is, Yeah, I'm not gonna pay

6:36

forty five dollars for that day's in you

6:38

know, it's said. I was reading them one of the articles

6:40

that this article on our site was based on, and

6:43

um they made that point like,

6:45

sure, if you live in in Manhattan

6:47

or Rio, you're not gonna have any

6:49

trouble whatsoever. But um,

6:52

they said, you can still have

6:54

a successful swap if you're able to convince

6:57

somebody who has a house where you want to go

6:59

of the in charms of Toledo

7:02

or Tulsa. Then my hometown

7:04

is an example. Well at the place you wouldn't want

7:06

to go. Yeah, I think all you need to say is Tony Paco's

7:09

and people would be all over it exactly clean

7:12

or yeah. Um. So the traditional

7:15

exchange is one. Non simultaneous

7:18

swap is another. This is the rich person swap.

7:20

You take it. Yes, when you have a like a

7:22

vacation house and you don't necessarily

7:24

have to plan your vacation with air as you can just say take

7:27

my place in uh in Worcester

7:29

and I'll take your place in

7:32

Rio. Yes. Rio is the hot

7:34

spot right now, is um. You could

7:36

also do non non simultaneous

7:38

swap where you maybe

7:41

you're not at home and somebody's using

7:43

your home but you're not using there's

7:45

at the same time, but you're banking a credit

7:48

to be able to use their's in

7:50

the future. Oh, so I have business in

7:52

Rio, so you can stay in my house in Atlanta

7:54

and I'll take you up at a future date to stay at your

7:56

house in Rio, exactly because

7:59

my company's for me to go to Rio this

8:01

time. So I don't have to worry about it, okay,

8:03

um. And then there's the one that I would find

8:05

extremely uncomfortable.

8:08

Do people really do this, Yes

8:10

they do, and I'll describe some of them momentarily.

8:13

But the hospitality exchange, it

8:15

doesn't matter whether I'm the host or the guest,

8:18

I would feel really uncomfortable.

8:20

Like my mom was always this very very

8:22

generous person, and she always wanted to bring

8:25

home like a single friend or something

8:27

at the hospital she worked with for Thanksgiving

8:29

or Christmas, and my sister where all

8:32

my sister and I were always like, we don't

8:34

know this person. Now our holiday

8:36

is awkward. Like, yes, we're helping a stranger,

8:38

but at what costs?

8:41

You know? So I've always been

8:43

like that. I've just I've never liked

8:45

hanging out with people I didn't know on a really

8:50

intimate Yeah, but I

8:52

mean like, guy can hang out with anybody in a

8:54

bar or whatever. If someone's

8:57

houses in play or is the setting, it

8:59

changes every thing. It's just uncomfortable for you.

9:01

But I'll tell you who is into that, the

9:04

two point two million members of surfing

9:07

dot com. Oh

9:09

those people. Yeah, So

9:11

I don't even know if you said for sure, what a

9:13

hospitality exchange is that's when you live with

9:16

each other. Yeah, that's when

9:18

you say you can come and stay in my place and while

9:20

I'm here, be here too, and then I'll just come visit

9:22

you someday while you're there

9:25

and we'll just be uncomfortable. But what

9:27

if they it doesn't go well in the first round and

9:30

you hate each other. I don't know.

9:32

I think it was it was free, so maybe

9:35

you could send a friend, uh

9:37

remer play like I don't like you, but I

9:39

have a friend who would love you well.

9:43

They do say, though, to be fair, that it's

9:45

not necessarily like you're in a little one room apartment

9:47

with these people. It works better if you have

9:50

a large house with maybe a

9:53

private guest house or some area

9:55

where you don't have to necessarily be with each

9:57

other all the time, So that makes a little more sense.

10:00

Still, not into it if you are into

10:02

sharing your town with strangers,

10:06

like let's go see this or

10:08

let's go to the world of coke right exactly

10:10

If you can't possibly get to the world of coke

10:13

often enough, hospitality

10:15

swaps are the one for you. I love showing

10:17

people Atlanta that I know. Yeah,

10:20

that's one of my favorite things. Is to to delight

10:22

people with the charms of my hometown,

10:25

because there are many charms in Atlanta, but

10:28

strangers. I

10:30

mean, I feel was a friend of a friend that was a stranger, I

10:32

would certainly do that too, but not

10:34

I would never log on to a website

10:36

and just say just come and visit me. I'll show you around Atlanta.

10:39

All right. So we've clearly established

10:41

now that hospitality exchanges are

10:43

the worst idea ever devised by humankind,

10:46

or that we're just two big jerks, one

10:48

of the two. So let's stick to the traditional

10:50

exchanges where you don't meet them, they don't

10:53

meet you. You just use one another's houses.

10:55

That's what how It wasn't that movie. So according

10:57

to Um the

11:00

Time article house swapping

11:02

as well, written by a Russo, specifically

11:05

Francine Russo, Um,

11:07

most of the people about is

11:09

an estimate, have already house

11:11

swapped. So most people who are involved

11:14

in house swapping I've done it before. They're usually

11:16

professionals, business people, doctors.

11:19

It's not a couchsurf situation. No. Again,

11:21

there is CouchSurfing dot com, and I would advise

11:24

people to go check that out if you're into

11:26

hospitality exchanges. Either as

11:28

a guest or host. Check out CouchSurfing dot

11:30

com. It's pretty cool. Um. But with the

11:32

traditional house swap, let's talk

11:34

about the details, Chuck, Like, what are you going

11:36

to do? Like, let's say you live in um,

11:40

yes, and I live in Mobile, Alabama,

11:43

and you're you have a dead relative in Mobile

11:46

and have to go there. Well, I'm depressed all of a sudden.

11:48

But what I would do is fight through that depression first,

11:50

and then you and I

11:52

would start exchanging emails with one

11:54

another where we start to outline specifics

11:58

of what this is going to entail. Because

12:00

on the surface it seems easy, like, hey, you just swap houses,

12:03

but there's a lot of you know, small details. You might have

12:05

a car that you want to have use of,

12:08

so what you know, you can use my car. You

12:10

might have house plants or pets. You

12:13

might have mail that you want picked up. You might

12:15

have your refrigerator

12:18

only opens if you if you hike up the left

12:20

side first and pull the door open. There

12:22

might be a little tricks to your house. You gotta

12:24

jigger the dead bolt from the inside

12:26

if you want to leave the house. So you gotta get

12:29

all those little details out in the open, so

12:31

you know what you're dealing with. You're also going

12:33

to be leaving the keys of your car, the

12:36

keys to your boat, the keys to your a

12:38

t v s. Everything, Like

12:40

you're giving these people your life.

12:43

Um, if you are a friendly sort

12:46

or a suspicious sort, and you have neighbors,

12:48

friends and relatives that live in the area

12:51

who will listen to your commands, you

12:53

may command them to drop by and

12:55

introduce themselves, maybe to act as tour

12:57

guides, maybe to just say hi, maybe

12:59

to just give even more advice

13:01

find out if everything's going on, Like

13:03

you were switching lives with people for a

13:06

minute a week. Well,

13:08

in the movie The Holiday, the

13:12

reason that Cameron met Jude Law was

13:14

because that was Kate Winslet's brother. Okay,

13:17

so you are sort of switching lives. And the reason

13:19

Jack Black was there because I think

13:22

I can't remember, but it was Jack Black.

13:24

He was there. He was the neighbor or something and he

13:26

knew where somehow. So yeah, I

13:28

was reading another article that this article was based

13:31

on. I think it was in Budget Travel, um,

13:33

and the woman who was talking about house swapping

13:36

was saying that, Um, she

13:38

she and her I think mother were staying

13:40

in this Paris flat and they were living

13:43

Francois life, like they were eating at his

13:45

favorite beast rode down the street, and they

13:47

were like fixing his leaky sink and

13:49

talking to his neighbors outside, you

13:51

know, his flat, that kind of stuff.

13:54

So you can expect, like, if you're if you kind of

13:56

keep to yourself, you're probably

13:58

not gonna house swap in the first place. But if

14:00

you if you're looking to come out of your shell trade

14:03

houses with somebody, well, and they say, that's

14:06

another great reason to do this, if you're if

14:08

you want a more immersive, non touristy experience.

14:12

I've never even rented an apartment

14:14

from someone, but I'm keen to go

14:16

to a foreign country and live in a neighborhood

14:19

apartment rather than a hotel.

14:21

Like I like hotels for a minute, but at

14:24

at the hospitality, all the fakeness, it's all

14:26

it's all rings faults to me. Oh, you're

14:28

crazy all

14:30

the way from me. It just is so fake to me.

14:33

I I but you know it's fake. You know that

14:35

people are paid to be nice too. It's not like I

14:37

think that they actually like me or anything like

14:39

that. I don't care, right

14:42

I'm at the hotel. I don't share, no trust

14:44

me. I love hotels a little bit because I didn't get to stay in them

14:47

as a child. We didn't

14:49

what we were poor teachers and we can't.

14:52

That's funny that you bring up teachers, Chuck, because

14:54

this whole thing, the whole thing was

14:56

started in ninety three by

14:58

a group of teachers who founded

15:00

Inner Vack International Vacations

15:03

so that they could cheaply swap or

15:05

make sense rental places or they

15:08

have to make ends. Me that that makes total sense.

15:10

So that's where house swapping actually came from his teachers.

15:13

I didn't know that. Now you do, Uh,

15:16

what's another good reason to how swap? Josh?

15:18

Or what's something you can do forget good reasons?

15:20

What's something else you can do to be a

15:22

good house swapper? What can you offer? Um?

15:24

You would also, well, you want to treat

15:26

this like it's you want

15:29

to treat the other person's house like you are

15:31

hoping they're treating your house. Well, yeah, right,

15:33

So let's say you break a dish. You would leave a note

15:36

and say I broke this dish, I'm very sorry. Here

15:38

are all the pieces, but here's also money

15:40

to write here's also money to replace

15:43

it, and if it's more, let me know and I'll send

15:45

you the difference or whatever. Or better yet,

15:47

just replace something if if you can replace

15:49

it. If you can't, sure, um you

15:52

it's probably still a good idea to leave a

15:54

note, unless it's just something that they're never gonna right

15:57

exactly. Um. You will

16:00

probably also want to restock the fridge

16:02

when you leave. You want to clean up.

16:05

Um, you want to If

16:07

the car catches on fire, you're gonna want to pick

16:09

up the phone and say your car is on fire. Yeah,

16:11

a big, big oops. You should probably let

16:14

them know. Um, And it's nice

16:16

to leave a little parting gift, sure

16:18

right. Um. You also uh want

16:21

to take care of their pets if they've asked you

16:23

to take care of their pets, bringing the mail. These

16:25

kind of things are usually worked out ahead of time, though.

16:27

Yeah, they say it's a good idea a lot of times

16:29

to having a letter of agreement that's

16:32

not a legal document, but it just kind of outlines

16:34

expectations for each other because

16:36

in the end, what you want is just a positive experience.

16:38

You don't want to come home and say my plants

16:41

are dead or my dog is uh dead.

16:43

Gosh, if I wasn't gonna say that, I was gonna say hungry,

16:46

but dead from hunger. Dead from hunger.

16:49

Uh. So you want to have reasonable

16:51

expectations, and apparently these

16:54

uh websites who run these places

16:56

say that it generally works out

16:58

pretty well and the the biggest problems

17:00

that usually have are differing

17:03

expectations that aren't outlined

17:05

really specifically, right, um, usually a

17:07

differing expectation of or

17:09

differing definition of cleanliness.

17:12

Yeah, that's the same. You ever go on Yelp

17:15

and read hotel recommendations, It's

17:18

awful people are I mean,

17:20

that's something's got to really be wrong with a hotel

17:22

for me to to log into a

17:24

website and complain. But you should see the stuff.

17:27

People complain about the quality of

17:29

the chocolate left on their pillow, and

17:31

their expectations are so ramped

17:33

up for some of these folks. It's just it's

17:35

the same with hotels. Yeah, I just call those

17:37

people hard to please, whether your house

17:40

swapping or or just vacationing. But

17:42

not only that, they like

17:44

I would consider myself hard to please. But I

17:47

don't see ever really going

17:49

on to a site and posting

17:51

a complaint it's

17:53

more just like, well, you failed to please me,

17:56

so I won't be back. But all that's going on in

17:58

my head or I'm saying it to human, she's like,

18:00

mm hmmm. I

18:02

did do one Yelp post about a

18:05

nameless restaurant here in Atlanta that served me a

18:07

raw hamburger, like purple

18:09

raw meat inside it was disgusting.

18:12

Which one I'm not gonna tell you. I'll tell

18:14

you after. And I did write a yelping for

18:16

you, because all they basically did was say, oh,

18:19

I'm really sorry that your burger would

18:21

have killed you if you would have eaten it. Well, we won't charge

18:23

you for it. And I said, oh, okay,

18:26

how about like a three piece of cheese cake or

18:28

something? And I complained in the name they

18:33

they got in touch with me, though. The restaurant

18:35

did from the Yelp review and said,

18:37

we're so sorry, this is not our policy. Would

18:39

like to offer you a gift card

18:42

for an under cooked hamber It was only

18:44

twenty five bucks. I thought was kind of lame. It

18:47

was a nice place, oh was it. Okay

18:50

you're eating hamburgers and five star restaurants

18:52

now, well, but it was one of those you know, sixteen dollar

18:54

hamburgers. Yeah, I can

18:56

see that. Yeah, um,

18:59

Chuck, Josh. We

19:01

talked about some common complaints. We also

19:03

mentioned the letter of agreement, right,

19:06

yes, not a legal contract. Like you said, there's

19:08

a couple of points that most people would

19:11

make on a letter of agreement. Um,

19:13

it's where you're saying you do this,

19:15

I'll do this, or I'm gonna do this, and you're

19:17

not gonna do that, and you just have it spelled

19:20

out so that everybody's on the same page. Right.

19:22

So what are some of the points in the letters

19:24

of agreement? William Sapphire would

19:27

call them. Like a hotel, you would want to know like

19:29

the phone and internet deal if if

19:31

all of a sudden you have a big long distance spill. Um,

19:34

you want to get that pre range ahead of time. Now that's

19:36

covered. Uh. You want

19:39

to outline who can stay there, just like a hotel.

19:41

Hotels say you can't have twenty of your friends in a

19:44

room, and you can say I don't want twenty

19:46

of your friends in my house, right, especially

19:48

if they're a thrill kill colt into blood orgies

19:50

that yes. Uh. You

19:53

also want to talk about what will happen

19:55

if something is damaged or broken down. Do you

19:57

want to know immediately? You do not want to know? You

20:00

have them called Jack Black, the neighbor

20:03

what sure? Um? And

20:05

uh also that

20:08

you want to disclose whether or not you have homeowners

20:11

or renters or auto insurance.

20:14

Yeah, because the cool thing is is you can let

20:16

somebody take your car because as far as

20:18

the um auto insurance

20:20

companies concerned, that's your friend and

20:22

your friends covered by your insurance.

20:24

Well maybe not always right, Well, yeah,

20:27

I think as long as you're covered, yeah, as long

20:29

as you yeah, well, I think

20:31

one article I read it didn't spell out car insurance,

20:34

but it did say that a lot of insurance companies,

20:36

if you're gonna do the house swap, you

20:38

should check with your homeowners insurance

20:40

and just make sure everything because some of them have little caveats.

20:43

That is a great point. That is a very

20:45

very good point. And you should probably also do that

20:47

with your car insurance just

20:49

to be safe. Right, um

20:52

chuck gosh. So

20:55

we mentioned inter back, right, that was the one that

20:57

was that started all this in ninety three.

20:59

There's also a place called home Link that's

21:01

big, and then there's tons of other sites.

21:04

I went on inter back today. They have this place at Table

21:07

Mountains, South Africa, because it was one of the most

21:09

beautiful homes I've ever seen in my entire life.

21:11

Pool everything just mod

21:14

really sweet house. So they do have cool

21:16

houses and apparently they have about ten thousand

21:18

listings. Are you gonna go there? No?

21:21

Did you offer up your place? No? I was just checking it

21:23

out, you know, I'm want to do um.

21:26

But apparently everywhere from like Craigslist

21:28

for free to like these high

21:31

end sites that charge you about a hundred

21:33

bucks to be a member to list your house. Yeah,

21:35

you can. Like there's a whole subculture

21:37

out there that we weren't aware of. I'm men look into

21:39

this. Yeah, I don't think my

21:42

house is. I guess if you were

21:44

a big golf fan the

21:46

East, like golf tournament is like right across the street. If

21:48

you want to rent my house for the weekend, which is actually

21:50

this weekend? Oh is it? Yeah?

21:52

I got home yesterday in their cars everywhere

21:55

and in yep piece from the suburbs,

21:57

so in their cores like cans in my yard and talking

21:59

about dirt the neighborhood was. I

22:01

could see you with the shotgun being like get off a

22:03

mile along YUPPI here. It's

22:06

kind of fun, but it's also kind of annoying. I'm with you.

22:08

Are you gonna sell anything? I

22:10

may sell some parking spaces. Oh yeah,

22:13

okay, but nobody marries No. No,

22:15

that didn't work out. A couple of last

22:17

things, real quick, chuck, Uh. Intuition

22:20

is huge, huge. Uh.

22:23

If you start to get the impression that you

22:25

don't really feel comfortable with this person, the more you

22:27

talk to him, that's that. And

22:30

since their house swappers and you're doing this

22:32

and you're they'll understand. Uh.

22:34

If you kind of are on the fence,

22:37

you can feel free to ask them for references.

22:39

Apparently is fine, although I'd

22:41

be like, no, that's why

22:43

another reason you're not a good housewapper. Uh. And then,

22:45

um, if somebody seems a

22:48

little controlling, like here

22:50

are exact details of what you have to do

22:52

every moment you're at the house, they're

22:55

probably not going to be real comfortable.

22:58

They're being forced into this, possibly

23:00

by a thrill kill cult that they're a member

23:02

of. I think I'd be okay with it,

23:05

okay, except for my animals. I would

23:07

be a little suspicious

23:09

to let the stranger take care of my animals. I

23:11

would have to really know that they had dogs and cats

23:14

and they knew how to do it. And Emily gets

23:16

real specific with the directions for the

23:18

animals, which is a good

23:20

idea. Oh. Another thing you should do is take

23:24

the things you're really really love

23:26

and or maybe valuable and either

23:29

put them in a friend's house or lock them in a room in your

23:31

house, just to be safe. It's not necessarily

23:33

even thievery. Just if you have a really expensive

23:35

ose, don't leave it on your kitchen counter. And

23:37

that's just dumb, agreed. Mistakes can happen.

23:42

So that is the sound

23:44

that officially ends house swapping forever

23:46

for the rest of our lives, will never talk about it again.

23:50

Thank you, Thank you for bearing with

23:52

us this far. UM. Hats

23:54

off to you, tip of the hat, Chuck,

23:56

just did it. Um. If you want to

23:59

learn more about how swapping why,

24:01

there's nothing else to know UM, you can type

24:03

in h O U, S, E, SPACE,

24:07

S W, A, P, P I

24:10

n G in the search bar at

24:12

how stuff works dot com and

24:14

UM that brings up, of course Facebook

24:17

questions. How

24:20

about a quick announcement, Josh, okay,

24:23

it kept very quiet here A

24:26

silence fell yeah. Uh,

24:28

the co ED Decoperative for Education.

24:31

Yes, our our beautiful friends,

24:33

um, who took us to Guatemala. Indeed,

24:36

they are having a fall

24:38

fiesta here in Atlanta, and we

24:40

want to give that a little pluggage. It is October

24:42

twenty one. It is at the Metropolitan

24:45

Club in Alpharetta, Georgia. Right and

24:47

uh to seven, seven to ten pm.

24:50

That's right. Twenty bucks to get in. But twenty

24:52

bucks buys you food, wine, beer

24:55

and entertainment. And

24:57

by entertainment we mean Jerry

24:59

won't be there. Jerry is going to be there in the flesh

25:01

in her birthday suit. She'll be playing uh,

25:04

drum solos. I'm not mistaken.

25:06

I don't know if a room shot is

25:09

a drum solo. Uh.

25:11

And basically they're raising money for

25:14

you know, they're awesome operation with like awesome

25:17

prizes. You can win raffles, you

25:19

can win a week long African

25:21

Safari. Yes, sign brave stuff, which

25:23

I know you would be into stuff,

25:26

um and chuck. Just to give everybody

25:28

quick rundown if you don't know who

25:30

COED is, first of all, go listen to the two

25:32

part Guatemala podcasts.

25:35

Right, um. And they are a

25:37

nonprofit that basically

25:40

pulls together money to buy textbooks

25:43

for schools in Guatemala, which

25:45

in turn rent them and create the self sustaining

25:47

system where every five years the schools

25:50

have have saved enough money

25:52

through these rental fees to buy

25:55

new textbooks and much more. Yeah,

25:57

and they do computer lives tune. It's just a really

26:00

you and I thoroughly believe in this group,

26:02

right, agreed, So we would encourage you, if

26:04

you're in Atlanta to go to the fall Fest

26:06

October twenty one and Alpharetta. And

26:08

where can they get more? More information

26:11

on the co ed site you think? If

26:13

so, it's www dot co

26:16

ed u see dot org. Right,

26:18

you should go there anyway, c O E d U

26:20

ce dot org concrete. Okay,

26:22

so let's get to it. Yes, we're gonna cover

26:24

a few of these real quick. Josh, I

26:27

gave you a sheet there, right, Will you play along?

26:30

Sean Ross hyphen favorite

26:33

soda? Question Mark, what's

26:35

your favorite soda? Oh Um, that's

26:37

what I've been big on

26:39

club soda lately, just playing club

26:42

soda. They have it in the Brake croom now, the

26:44

little Schwepps. I've

26:47

just been drinking it in there. Remember

26:49

we talked about in taste. We have taste buds

26:51

for carbon dioxide. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

26:54

my My carbon dioxide receptors are

26:56

in heaven. I love that stuff too. I

26:58

am not a big soda drinker, but I

27:01

do love sun kissed and root beer, and

27:04

I love Lacroix, which is the

27:06

fizzy water with the natural flavoring.

27:09

Very good, chuck, yes, excellent. Eric

27:12

Sanchez says, would you fight a full three rounds

27:14

against George Sampierre for

27:16

ten thousand dollars? He's a UFC

27:19

guy, don't. The question used to

27:21

be would you get in a ring with Mike Tyson for ton

27:25

thousand? Yeah, there's no way. This face is way too

27:27

pretty for that. I don't. I just

27:29

don't like pain, so no, thank you. Okay, answers

27:32

that one. Uh, let's see Victoria

27:34

Dugger. Their name sounds familiar if

27:37

we is that Facebook buddy all the time,

27:39

so it's like she might have been a New York person.

27:41

Okay, Uh, well, hey, they're Victoria

27:44

Dugger? Whose voice is that? Who introduces

27:46

you on the podcast? Is that Jerry?

27:48

It is not Jerry, It

27:51

is roxand it is our head of the video department,

27:53

Rock sand. She does a fine job and she's

27:56

from North Carolina. People always say, what is that accent?

27:58

It's a non regional dialect. Yes, it

28:00

is studied in Roxanne. I went

28:02

to high school with Zack Galafanakas. Yes, they

28:05

know each other. It's small little tidbit there for you. Shannon

28:07

Rink says, what do you see as the future of the podcast? You

28:09

guys have been doing it for a couple of years. Now, do

28:12

you see herself doing it for a few more years?

28:14

God willing? Yeah, we were

28:17

talking about how the magic has gone, but we're going to soldier

28:19

on and make half good podcast. Oh.

28:22

I think we both agreed to though that we love the podcast

28:24

so much, even if bigger and better things are in our future,

28:26

we would like to keep doing the podcast. Sure, but

28:29

we'll see. Yeah, um, let's

28:31

see we did this Shaun Ross's favorite soda

28:33

one already? Yes? Uh. Jan

28:35

Moffat asks do you use innuendo

28:38

on purpose or is it just a consequence

28:40

of talking about things like totem poles.

28:44

I'd say both. Yeah,

28:46

it depends. Like I think a lot of

28:48

our humor is really accidental, but

28:51

that just kind of makes it funnier. Don't you think it's

28:53

also fairly scatological, and we do a good job

28:55

at raining that in. Yeah. For example,

28:58

you have in your signature of Pallas Nicolas.

29:03

Actually his name is Nicolas. What

29:07

has been the most difficult podcast to explain?

29:09

I had a real hard time with the Sun podcast,

29:12

as we all know. Wow, we did have a lot of trouble

29:14

with the Sun, didn't we. That was I

29:16

don't think that was a good one. It was UM large

29:19

Hadron Collider for me. I

29:21

think the one that I thought I was going to do well on but

29:23

really didn't was UM Butterfly Wings

29:26

Color Iridescence. That

29:29

was so maddening. Do you have another one

29:31

I do? Um is the in

29:33

the Inevitable movie bio on Hippie

29:36

Rob. Who do you think should play the lead? I never

29:38

met the guy, so you tell me. I can't

29:40

really envision anybody playing Hippie Rob,

29:42

but Hippie Rob. So I think

29:44

that if someone approached

29:47

us to do a movie on Hippy Rob, we would

29:49

have to launch like a national search for Rob,

29:52

find him and pay him in like

29:54

Milwaukee's Best Ice. It's funny that

29:56

I don't know who he is, but I still have. You know, you get

29:58

a mental picture when you hear about someone who you have who?

30:00

I picture the guy in office space, the next

30:02

door neighbor that had the big mullet and the big handlebar

30:05

mustache. It's you're not too far off.

30:07

Um. Rob was a little softer, a little

30:09

more self aware than

30:12

that guy. And with red hair. Oh

30:14

really yeah, I just blew

30:17

my mind. Yeah, reddish strawberry blonde hair

30:19

and beard. Crazy. Uh.

30:21

And I got one more? Um, I have

30:23

one more. It's from Scott Fogg and

30:26

he says American coke or Mexican coke.

30:29

Definitely Mexican coke. I don't

30:31

even drink coke, but when I see Mexican coke,

30:33

I buy it because it's

30:35

got a sugar. Yeah, the real deal. Yep.

30:38

Um. If you want

30:40

to ask us a question, you have

30:42

to be our friend on Facebook. You

30:44

have to go to facebook dot

30:47

com slash stuff you should know. Uh.

30:49

You can also follow us on Twitter. It's

30:52

s y s K podcast. As always,

30:54

you can send us an email at stuff

30:57

podcast at how stuff works dot

30:59

com. Mm hmm. For

31:04

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31:07

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31:09

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