Beginning the House Sitting Adventure

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About the experience of becoming house sitters

About the experience of becoming house sitters

My husband and I will very shortly start a several week house-sit in the English countryside where we will look after two fox terriers while their owners are away. We are looking forward to the adventure, but it has also been a bit of an adventure just to get to this point.

What is House Sitting?

Before I talk about our experience, I should explain briefly what house sitting is. It is a practice where a home owner has someone else live in their house while they are away. That other person(s) takes care of the house, and in many cases, pets as well. For the home or pet owner, it means their house and pets are looked after in their absence. In exchange for their care, the sitters get free accommodations, chances to experience an area like a local, and opportunities to interact with pets. The durations of house-sits can run from a few days to several months.

It is a win-win situation in many ways, but it is not for everyone. Home owners need to be comfortable having someone else in their home. They need to make space for the sitter(s) and prepare information on the specific needs of the pets, emergency contacts, etc. Sitters take on home and pet responsibilities as agreed to with the owner. Responsibilities vary by situation. Sitters need to be prepared to spend time in the home and with the pets.

There are several companies that act as brokers matching home and pet owners with sitters. You sign up as either an owner or sitter (or maybe both) for a yearly subscription fee, ranging from $20 to $100 depending on the company. Some of the more common companies are TrustedHousesitters, house carers, Nomador, and Mind My House.

Note: Most sites allow you to browse without payment. This is a good way to get a feel for the site and the type and location of sits you’ll find there.

How We Got Interested

Over the last two to three years, I’ve read several accounts of house-sitting experiences by online friends. I found the concept intriguing and their experiences interesting. My husband and I began to discuss whether we might want to house-sit.

We like to travel and experience new places. We like visiting the traditional tourist sites as well as getting to know a place more deeply. Accommodations are one of the most expensive items related to travel. It seemed as if house-sitting might allow us to travel more, have longer more relaxed stays in one place, and a get a sense of the local life. We are former dog owners and felt we’d enjoy taking care of someone else’s dogs.

In spring of this year, when we’d almost made up our minds to give this a go, an opportunity landed in our laps in that wonderfully serendipitous way in which the universe sometimes works. Our next-door neighbours were scheduled to house-sit for several weeks in Victoria for friends they’d house-sat for before. However, they were unable to do the first two weeks and, knowing we travel to Victoria occasionally to visit family, asked if we’d be interested. We jumped at the chance. In this case, there were no pets involved. The family’s elderly mother lived in a self-contained, attached apartment. She was quite capable of taking care of herself, but they felt more comfortable going away knowing someone was in the house beside her. That experience strengthened our resolve to look for other house-sitting opportunities.

Signing Up

We chose to sign up with TrustedHousesitters, the largest company of this kind. After you join, you create a profile. Home owners read this to find out about you and your qualifications when they are in the process of selecting sitters. The profile format varies slightly with each company, but essentially contains similar information: an overview of who you are, why you want to house-sit, and why owners should pick you to look after their homes and pets.

I liken the profile to a resume one might create for a job search. We spent time developing our profile before we officially signed up and paid for our membership. That way, we could start applying for sits fairly quickly rather than spend the first weeks of our paid membership honing our profile. I found online advice about creating the profile. I read other house-sitter profiles. We had to decide what skills and experience we wanted to highlight.

The best profiles I read weren’t particularly long, but they still conveyed something about the personality and interests of the sitter(s) in addition to their competencies. House-sitting is a transaction between individuals and ultimately relies on making a personal connection.

There is a catch-22 in job hunting that it is hard to get a job without experience, but you can’t get experience without getting a job. Getting started with house-sitting seemed to have a similar catch-22. House-sitters who’d done a few sits through TrustedHousesitters had reviews from home owners that owners of future potential house-sits could read as references. We were new to the site and had no such reviews. However, there was an opportunity to obtain external references and we did that. The people we house-sat for in spring provided a reference as did a friend we’d dog-sat for in the past.

Finding Our First House-Sit

We had no particular destination in mind and a fairly open calendar. While it is possible to browse the TrustedHousesitter site in general or by specific location, we mostly relied on the twice daily emails I received with new house-sits. We looked through all of these to find sits of interest. Due to my cat allergy, we ruled out any sits with cats. We passed over ones with farm animals we had no experience with. Some locations felt a little too exotic for our first sitting experience. Although our calendar was fairly open, we did have a couple of commitments and we ignored sits with dates that conflicted with the timing of those commitments.

If the profile can be likened to a resume, the application is the cover letter. It is a short message to the owner saying why you are interested and why you would be a good fit. You want the letter to induce them to seriously consider your application. Depending on the time and location, some sits can generate a large number of applicants, like the one with the house on the beach in Hawaii. The messages took time to compose to be specific to the sit and not simply restate profile information.

We signed up in late August and spent many hours in September reviewing possible house-sits, checking out their locations, and applying for close to thirty sits in various places. Some applications resulted in further follow-up with email conversations. A couple led to Skype and Facetime calls, rather like a job interview although less structured and more informal.

TrustedHousesitters recommends considering a local house-sit as one of your first sits in order to get experience and reviews. There were a couple of sits in or just outside our home city of Winnipeg. The owners contacted me to see if we would be interested in taking on the sit. We might have, but timing in both cases was a conflict for us.

Many of the house-sits in those twice-daily emails were in the United Kingdom. We have a special affinity for England. My husband lived in London for a short time as a young man and formed life-long friendships. As we looked through the sits, the idea of getting a sit in England became more and more appealing. Eventually, near the end of September, we landed a house-sit for later in the year in rural Surrey, England. A car is needed, but the owner is making hers available to us for the cost of adding us onto her insurance.

What’s Next?

We have been in touch with and will continue to have contact with the home owner before our sit starts. We plan to arrive at the house the day before the owner leaves so that she can explain things to us and we can get acquainted with the dogs.

We continue to review available house sits on a daily basis, looking for future opportunities. Because our schedule for the next few months is now less open due to this sit and to other plans, the dates of many of the sits in the email do not work for us. We find fewer to follow up on. It has therefore become less time-consuming, at least for now.

Impressions so Far

House-sitting is not about free accommodation. Or at least not only about it. And it isn’t completely free. You will have real dollar costs that include things like transportation to and from the location, travel health insurance, and possibly rental cars. There are non-dollar costs: your time in finding a sit and the responsibilities you take on during the sit.

Since the majority of the house-sits involve pets, you need to love dogs or cats or other animals. It was often the dog in the postings we reviewed that first drew me to the posting.

If you are determined to be in a particular place on a specific date, there is a possibility you could get lucky and find an appropriate house-sit, but you may be better off booking a hotel or AirBnB.  Flexibility in terms of timing and/or location opens up possibilities and may see you heading off to all kinds of interesting places.

You will be not be accepted for every sit you apply for. The owners may connect more with another applicant, may choose someone with more experience or closer to home, or use someone who has sat for them in the past. Like the job hunting process or submitting stories or pitches to editors, you need to accept the rejection and move on. If the rejections pile up without any nibbles of interest, you may want to review how you apply, the contents of your profile, or ways to beef up your experience. Continue to apply.

You have to be honest with yourself and home owners about what you are prepared to take on. Occasionally a home owner with three or four or five large dogs said the sitter needed to be strong to handle the dogs. That sounded like more than we were prepared to deal with. Other sits required the sitter not be away from the home for more than an hour at a time. This situation might work well for digital nomads looking for housing, but not for someone who wants to also see a bit of the local area beyond dog-walking parks. (Why these same sits would list the attractions in the area was a mystery to me as the owners wanted the sitters to stay at home.) We expect to spend a fair amount of time at home or with the dogs, but we also want to be able to get out a bit on some days and explore. Sits where the dog(s) can be left for four hours or more were a better match for our expectations.

The house-sitting experience is about local experience and connection. One home owner, who has also been a house-sitter, told me she’d made a lot of friends through house-sitting. I look forward to being part of this community and meeting people and their pets.

We are still new to this and don’t know what the future of house-sitting holds for us beyond our first sit. Our impressions will likely change as our experience grows. We’re up for this adventure!

If you want to find out how the house-sit worked out, read Starting the House Sit and The House Sitting Experience.

PIN ITAbout the experience and adventure of getting started with house-sitting. #housesit

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32 Comments

  1. That’s quite the process, Donna. Good luck with your adventure and looking forward to reading about it. Steve and I love dogs (Steve loves cats) but we are allergic to both, so housesitting is likely not in the cards for us.

    1. Deb, I’ve seen a few sits that don’t involve pets at all and a few with birds or fish and no dogs or cats, but they are a small minority of the overall, so you would likely find the options pretty limiting.

  2. A very interesting and thorough explanation, Donna. I have friends who operate AirB&Bs and I know setting up and operating an AirB&B and is quite a process. This sounds similar–a process that serves both the home owner and the house sitter well. I so admire your creative, adventurous spirit. (Guess we aren’t likely to see you in Arizona anytime soon! Too many other places to sample, right?)

    1. Thanks Sydney. I’m not sure whether we’ll make it to Arizona this winter or not. If we do, it won’t be an extended stay. I will let you know if plans materialize for AZ and maybe we’ll be able to get together.

  3. Sounds interesting, Will be anxious to hear your thoughts after the sit. Seems like a good way to really get to know someplace in a way you never could as a tourist.

    1. Ken, it will certainly be a different experience than that of a pure tourist. I will let you know what I think about the whole thing after we’ve finished the sit.

  4. I’m looking forward to hearing about how your house-sitting adventure goes as I’ve browsed a few sites and am definitely curious about the experience. We’d be open to farm animals as my husband grew up on a ranch so perhaps we’d have a few options even though we don’t have any house-sitting experience.

    1. Michele, the ranch experience might be useful. I didn’t came across a lot of sits with all kinds of farm animals, but there were kind a few with horses or chickens.

  5. I’d also have the concern abut how much time I could be away from the house due to the pets, Donna. It’s nice to know that all these things are laid out ahead of time for both house sitter and home owner. I look forward to hearing more.

    1. RoseMary, in most cases the expectations of the home/pet owner were clear in the posting.If you get to the next stage and have a discussion with the owner, you can get into more specifics. If, as a sitter, you think you’ll have difficulty meeting those expectations, you should not accept the sit and look for ones more suitable. I will let you know how the next stages go.

  6. How exciting, Donna! I really think this is a wonderful opportunity for folks like you who are retired and love to travel. I will be very interested in hearing how the experience goes for you and wish you luck with it all.

    1. Thanks, Doreen. You don’t need to be retired or digital nomads to house-sit. There are opportunities of varying lengths of time. However, having more time and flexibility in your schedule does open up more opportunities.

  7. Great information Donna and you bring up a good point in being clear about what both the homeowner and housesitter require from the relationship. We’ve done several housesits over the years and, as you’ve pointed out, it’s not a free ride for the sitter (travel, car rental, etc.) who is providing an important service to the homeowner. It’s a great opportunity though, for responsible people with a love for travel to offset some of their travel expenses and immerse themselves in a neighborhood and try out different locations and lifestyles. I’ll be looking forward to your UK experience as I recently renewed my membership with housecarers with the specific purpose of visiting England. Good luck and enjoy! Anita

    1. Anita, the phrase “there is no free lunch” has come to mind a few times during the process, but I agree it is a great opportunity. We are looking forward to it.

  8. Housesitting certainly has its attractions, and I’ve explored a few of the sites to see how it works. What’s put me off so far is the feeling of being tied to that one place. I can imagine if it was in, say, London, then there’d be enough to see within easy reach so I could get back to the house for pet care, or I could take a dog with me. But anything that was far from the sights would essentially preclude any sightseeing. Yes, it would be a good way to get to know a place like a local, but I fear that would get old quickly. I might sign up and try it, though, for short housesits, like a week or two.

    1. Rachel, there are situations where house-sitting is not a good option, particularly if you want to travel around a bit. You can find sits is areas with lots nearby (like London) and shorter stay sits. We’re comfortable being tied to a place for a bit longer.

  9. Donna, I really enjoyed your post. I’ve been debating for ages on doing house sitting but keep putting it off. I think it’s the time required to create a profile and then do the searching. I think you really lucked out with the sudden opportunity which then provided you with references. I’ve seen many others do it and it saves so much money. My other concern when I’ve don’t some brief investigation is that many of the properties I was interested in were out in the country—-nothing close by. Maybe I’ll try it again. Thanks for your inspiration!

    1. Janice, it does take a lot of time to create a profile and do the searching. If you are interested in a particular area (dare I say some place in France?), you’re best to take a look through the various sites to find the one which might have the most offerings in that area before deciding which site to sign up with.

  10. Wow Donna, thanks for explaining it all so well. I’ve also been following quite a few bloggers who house sit, and it all seemed rather easy. As you’ve explained it, like anything worthwhile it takes time, and finding a good fit for house, pets and house-sitters is no easy task. Good luck with everything and I can’t wait to hear what you find out about Surrey. Even though I come from England, I don’t know that county very well!

    1. Thanks Jo. Surrey is probably the area of England I am most familiar with because we have friends there. However, we haven’t stayed in this particular part and there is lots around here we haven’t seen yet.

  11. Friends of mine have done housesitting and watched a homeowner’s dogs. You did an excellent overview and I’d be curious to go on the sites and take a look. I’ve never owned a dog so don’t know if someone would feel comfortable with me watching their dog.

  12. It sounds like a new chapter is starting for you Donna. Best of luck! Look forward to following along on this journey of yours. I am sending this email to friends who’ve been searching for a housesitting opportunity as you’ve provided great information here!

  13. You describe the pros and cons well. I know from experience the responsibilities and costs involved. I love it for getting the chance to reside in a place for a while. We’re also realistic at how tied we are to the home; there are no weekend getaways when you are taking care of animals. Best regards for future sits!

  14. Great information, Donna. I’ve considered this, but a lot of the information I’ve seen has been either glib (it’s totally easy) or about disasters (our first house-sit involved putting out a prairie fire)! Now that I’ve read your info, I feel like this actually would be a reasonable option for us and that I have some idea of how to go about it. Thank you! Good luck with your stay!

    1. Cindy, I’m glad you found this useful. Housesitting is not totally easy nor is it for everyone, but most sits are disaster-free. We’re midway through our first sit, There have been some ups and downs, but mostly it is turning out as we expected. I will write about the experience after we’ve completed the sit.

  15. Hello
    Totally a new idea for me. Never heard about house sitting before. The process is long and a lot of responsibility and at the end not free.
    What do u think if we just go and stay in any restaurant, that will not be easier?

    1. Andleeb, it might be easier to stay at a hotel. However a hotel will cost more in real dollars and offers a different kind of experience. The advantages to house-sitting, in addition to monetary savings, are having a home setting, a slower and more relaxed experience, getting a glimpse into local life and making new friends. But it is not completely free and does come with responsibilities. We have now finished our first sit and enjoyed it, but the experience will not suit everyone.