House sitting ?

mickle · Veteran Member

House sitting ?

Lesley F · Senior Member

I have a house sitter, starting tomorrow. It's my first time, and I'm a bit nervous, the most important factor for me, was her on-line check-able references.

Some house sitters say they have references, but you have to ask permission to review or contact their former clients.

She's told me, over the years she's lived in dirty, and hoarder houses, and has cared for many pets.

She's also wary of touching other peoples food, sometimes items are way out of date.

Perhaps you could read some resume's from Aussie house sitters

www.aussiehousesitters.com.au/

and learn from their wording, which style appeals to you the most?, who would you choose? someone that's vague or another that's re-assuring with good references?

I hope that helps a little.

Bruce and Bev · Guru

Hi Mickle. We started house sitting about 4 months ago. Our 1st was a farm (no animals) in Batemans Bay NSW. The owners just wanted someone there to make sure no-one trashed the historic house (we lived in our 'van)

For the past 3 weeks we have been on a 7000 hectacre sheep and grain farm in Brookton. We only have to water her garden plants and feed the pets - lots of hens, 1 emu, 2 roos and 2 farm dogs.

Our next sit will be a house in metro Perth looking after 2 dogs for a month from Xmas till the end of January.

From our perspective, its important for both parties to clearly understand if any property work is required. On both farms, it will clear be email, but at both, we have been asked to do more. This is not the way to form a good landlord/tenant type relationship. Make sure you spell out exactly what you require from your sitters and then don't hit them with more close the sitting date.

We use the web site Aussie House Sitters. As a house owner, it costs you nothing, but the sitter pays an annual fee of $65. You can have a look at the entire web site and all the adverts and tenants profiles (a good profile is encouraged) before we need to register to use the site and advertise for sitters.

None of our owners have required references from us. We are retired and in our early 60s, so this is usually enpugh. It is unlikely previous house owners will supply written references - if this is something you want, then you would be given the names and phone numbers by the prospective sitter. Ive only ever had one requiring a police check - this is pretty much a waste of time - only the stupid get caught, or if a recent offence, then it wont be recorded in the check.

Both farm owners had a heap of experience in sitters and relied on an on-going email conversation to assess would be sitters. The metro house sitter we just visited for about and hour and they were mainly interested to make sure their dogs liked us :)

wendyv · Guru

We have used sitters quite a bit.

The best ones sent us a questionnaire, a few weeks before the sit commenced, asking us to list our preferred tradesmen (electrician, plumber, pool service) and their contact details; our pets' food preferences and feeding regimen; vet contact details; all sorts of things like that - even down to whether I had a preferred brand of washing powder to be used in my washing machine. Covered all the bases. We would leave Express mail pre-purchased bags for our mail forwarding.

They were very experienced sitters and had compiled the questions over years of experience.

It should be clear before the sit what are the arrangements re power, gas, phone etc use by you. Because our absences were usually 5-6 months, we asked sitters to pay the electriciity and gas bills over that time, and for any long distance calls on our phone.

JohnR · Senior Member

Michael

We are experienced house sitters and have been sitting for home owners for 18 months. We finished a house sit last Thursday in the ACT and started our current sit today in the Southern Tablelands of NSW.We have bookings until October 2016.
Our profile is on aussiehousesitters.
House sitting is NOT for everyone and like all things there are house sits and there are house sits.

In fact we have a house sit for 2.5 months in 2016 that we cannot accommodate.

You need to have good people skills, be able to communicate (utilize the technology such as skype), meet expectations and love animals.

Should you wish to pursue the opportunities and life style that goes with being a house sitter you can PM me.

Regards

JohnR

RodLainie · Senior Member

We have been house sitting for over 3 years during our travels. We have an extremely good reputation and many excellent references from house owners. We have looked after many different types of animals and their care is paramount. What you should look for is people with references you can contact, as anyone can just write out a reference. We also have a police check and although this is not always a requirement it's good to have. Mind you I think it doesn't give very much information on the house sitter.

We are members of aussiehousesitters.com.au which is a cost to us however people who need a house sitter can advertise for free. We have met some wonderful house owners and cared for some great pets. When we leave our house sits the animals are all washed and treated for fleas etc and the house is perfectly clean, one owners thought we had professionals in to clean.

Consider someone that has owned their own homes, not just some backpacker passing through, and people that have had their own animals. We travel with a parrot, so it's important that the owners are aware of that, but it would be difficult if they are travelling with their own dog or cat as it means they have to get along and the owners animals can be territorial.

We have recently finished a 3 1/2 month house sit in Gladstone then one in Port Macquarie for 3 months and going to Canberra next week for 9 weeks. If you are looking to do house sitting you could certainly do one after the next, but we try to fit in with where we are travelling so that we aren't jumping from place to place.

I hope this has given you some insight to the house sitting style of life. The mutual benefit for both parties is that the service is free i.e. owners have their pets at home (no kennel costs) their home is looked after and secure, for the sitter they can relax for a while out of their caravan and tour the area and are not paying the ever rising caravan park fees.

Cheers

Lorraine & Rod

deverall11 · Guru

We have been house siting for about 3 years. There are a few pitfalls. Depending on length of stay are you expected to contribute towards utility bills? We try and meet the owner before hand and then both parties can decide if suitable. We have knocked some back as the add was not what the house was (dodgy suburb/area). Some experierenced or clever owners with pet realise the cost of putting their pets in kennels and are usually the best and most grateful. Some want to book us for the next 3 to 4 years same time same place as they go on holidays same time every year. We have come across some not so nice owners. These are the ones you do not go back to. We have met some house sitters that were so discussed by the lack of response from the owners whilst there that have just walked away.
Some of the house sitting sites have some guidelines for you to peruse. Ask about insurance in case something happens. Ask about the neighbours to make sure they are not ferrel and have parties every weekend that go on until the early hours of the morning.
Larry

banjo · Senior Member

We too have done several sits, mainly small acreages, I enjoy a change now and again and love getting on the ride on mower or tractor. We have two spaniels and love animals too.

Only problems we have encountered is that some can be very remote which can be hard on a wife who likes shops and supermarkets ! also "some" owners seem to want lots of unpaid labour in return for very little, it really should be a two way street IMO.

One lady we had approach us was not going anywhere she just wanted unpaid help and us to pay rent to park our van while there ! we gave that one a miss.

The other side of the coin is we now have some great new friends we can call on and stay whenever we wish.

pawsoz · Senior Member

I do quite a bit of house sitting/pet sitting, I do not have my references on line as it would be to easy for someone else to copy, mess with and use, I prefer to give people contact numbers of my happy clients. It works well for me, as most of my clients are people I know from the dog world/motorhome world, and a nice couple through Aussie House Sitters too.

deverall11 · Guru

pawsoz wrote:
I do quite a bit of house sitting/pet sitting, I do not have my references on line as it would be to easy for someone else to copy, mess with and use, I prefer to give people contact numbers of my happy clients. It works well for me, as most of my clients are people I know from the dog world/motorhome world, and a nice couple through Aussie House Sitters too.

Yes we urge prospective house owners to contact our referees for the purpose of authentication of our references.

Bruce and Bev · Guru

Hi Banjo. You are so right about a few house owners wanting unpaid labour!!!

Our last sit was only to have someone on site (a farm which backed onto a very popular river with its own jetty). We were only there a week and the female half of the owner wanted us to re- vitalize their 3 acres of flower gardens which hadn't been touched for 12 years. The original arrangement was just mow the lawns around the house with a ride on mower. Told the owners we would do one or the other - not both. It took us about 4 weeks in total to get the gardens back into shape.

Our replacements arrived just before we left and after a week, found they were expected to be unpaid labourers doing things like putting in new sheep fencing. They were supposed to stay there for 2 months and left after 3 weeks after arguing with the owners.

Our current sit is on another farm. The deal was we feed the various animals - nothing more than that. Now she is asking me to mow the 1 acre of lawn with a push petrol mower and use the whipper snipper around her many gardens. Ive told her I wont mow the lawns - we already spend about 3-4 hours a day feeding the animals and operating the reticulation system in her flower and vege gardens.

We have to future house sits booked. One is a house in Perth and we have already visited them. We are all very clear on what is required of us. Primarily feed, love and walk the dogs, keep the house reasonably tidy (wont be difficult lol) and if we use the spa pool - then make sure the Technician visits and checks the pool. No gardens and lawns mowed.

The 2nd future sit is with a person from this Forum. We have already chatted by email and we will visit them in a few weeks time to make sure we are all on the same page. They seem very nice folk and we will no doubt get on well.

The moral of this story for both parties is for all to be clear on what is expected and then there will be no unpleasantness or resentment by the owner or sitter as to what was agreed before the sit starts

RodLainie · Senior Member

Hi Mickle

I hope all this advice is helping you to decide if you want to do house sitting or have house sitters. The long and short of it is to outline exactly what is expected by both parties. Do your homework, talk to them on the phone/Skype or visit them beforehand. Discuss if money will exchange hands i.e. utilities, phone or out of pocket expenses. If you are having house sitters on your property though make sure they understand phone usage is to be paid by them. One owner told us previous house sitters left a $600 phone bill from calling over seas. Also make sure that the caravan can be accommodated on site securely. We've had one house owner tell us tons of room for the van as it was over 2 acre property only to find out we couldn't get the van through the gate.

We don't do housesits that expect us to pay utilities (we use it sparingly), we do not use the owners phone at all as we have a mobile that is a flat fee, if we pay out for pet food (because owners have not left enough), or for pool maintenance (pool chemicals) the owner is to reimburse us. We at times do minor repairs around the property but anything major which is agreed with the owner they pay us for materials. We treat the house as our own so any gardening, mowing or pool/spa maintenance is done while we are there. Cleaning products we need to keep the home spotless which is in excess of the owners we tend to pay for, but this is something you can discuss with the owner.

We mostly do acreage properties in these cases the owners have many animals (2-3 dogs, cats, chickens, horses etc) if the owners were to kennel all these animals it would cost a fortune. The maintenance of their property (mowing, pool etc) not to mention the collection of mail and forwarding it onto owner and the property is kept secure by us being there. Also their dogs are walked daily. In view of all this we figure they are getting a great service and therefore we feel we shouldn't have to pay.

PM me if you would like more info.

Cheers

Lorraine

mickle · Veteran Member

Thanks Everyone, You have all been great with your advice, We expect to move off June / July , do not know where yet .
Mickle and Nor