Margraret I believe the safest and best option would be to sign up on one of the house sitting sites as any potential house sitters have to register to become sitters and many must have police/security checks done.

Kev

We are house sitters and use the biggest site - JohnG's suggested one above. It costs you as an owner nothing, but sitters pay $65.

We have sat for many people from large to small farms, houses with and without pets (although most people have house sitters because of their pets)

As an ex-policeman, not many sitters have police checks for owners. They cost almost $80 and only show the idiots that got caught and convicted and any recent convictions don't show anyway.

House owners normally don't give written references, but most are happy to receive a phone call from someone wanting to know how they found a sitter - a verbal reference. But if you intend to do this, make sure you phone several owners - its not uncommon for owners to try to treat sitters as full time, unpaid labourers which had not been arranged and there is "fall-out" when the sitters refuse. We have had this happen to us twice, but not fallen out with the owners. On both occasions, it was agreed what duties were required by the sitters, then after a few days the owners tried to dump a lot more work on us. We politely said no, and there were no hard feelings when it was pointed out tasks had previously been clearly agreed by email.

The best way is to do a face to face prior to the sit. Often this does not work as your applying sitters maybe in other States, but even a phone call is good.

You should always talk to your Insurance company about sitters - as they aren't paying tenants, it shouldn't have any impact on any potential claims, but your company may try to get you to take out Landlords Insurance.

The feedback we've had from houseowners who have used sitters for years is that they find mature aged people with no children are the most reliable and will take good care of your property and any pets. Backpackers have a bad reputation as they often don't care or decide to leave earlier than was arranged and just go - without even telling the absentee house owner

Hi Kev. Aussiehousesitters site is the biggest site for this. They don't require you to provide a police check or references - even a profile (which is a really good idea) is optional.

It is only the house owner that might ask for a police check and I only struck one. I wasn't interested as I wasn't going to spend $80 on the chance they may or may not want us as sitters. From past experience, most house owners are more interested and get a better "feel" for the sitter by email messaging, the sitters profile and either a phone call or if it can be done, a face to face.

As I said previously, only the dumb ones end up with a conviction that will appear on a national police check (am I'm speaking as as an ex-cop of 15 years) - the smart ones don't get caught or they have good lawyers who get them off without a conviction - or if a recent police charge, the conviction wont even show in the police check - it takes time for this info to go into the appropriate data base that will be transferred to a police check.