Wendy Woo wrote:

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We are looking to start doing some house sitting. Would like some feedback on websites and how people go about getting house sitting opportunities.

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Wendy Woo, welcome to the forum.  Check out the classifieds on this site.  http://thegreynomads.com.au/classifieds/  We advertise here, and get plenty of house sits.  There are also people who want house sitters who advertise here.  We have been house/farm sitting for a couple of years now using this site. Good luck, and have fun.   

We also use aussiehousesitters. You can view the total site at no cost, but if you want to answer house owners adverts and put up a profile, then it costs $65 a year.

We have been on a 200 acre farm at Batemans Bay beside the Clyde River - the historic house is being renovated, but we use the shower, toilet and washing machine. Costs us nothing.

We leave here in about 3 weeks (after 8 weeks on the farm) and house sit a WA Wheatbelt farm. Over Xmas and January we sit a house in metro Perth and then the Wheatbelt farmers want us to return after January and stay for as long as we want. Again no cost to us (including free power etc, internet etc)

Most house owners are looking for someone to primarily look after their pets as they've had bad experiences in the past with kennels. Some only want you to stay a few days or a week and others for up to a year or more if they have just got an overseas job.

Its important to write a friendly and inviting profile and smokers arent that popular (and it doesn't pay to say you are a party animal lol). We only joined 2 months ago and you can see the success we have had - ended up with multiple house offers for the same time. We have also had about 6-7 house owners from various parts of NSW read our profile and ask us to sit their places.

A few get a bit carried away and want to meet you in advance in person (difficult if youre a nomad and in a different part of the country), national police checks (which cost and only good for a year), references from previous house sit jobs and one even wanted a working with children permit for the benefit of the neighbourhood - doubt if this guy got a sitter because it shows he will be difficult to deal with.

But most house owners are easy to deal with - often they have had sitters before

oh - and many hose owners, including young people, prefer older nomads as they are less likely to trash their house, manufacture drugs and/or have wild parties LOL

Where we are at Batemans Bay, we were only required to use a ride-on mower to keep the 2 acres of lawn under control. Instead, we decided to restore the many gardens here (the owners didn't ask us to do it). As a result, they want us here forever to care for the gardens.....and we wont need to mow the lawns in the 3 weeks before we leave here to go back to WA.