Housesitting – It Brings Peace of Mind

This post was written by Colleen Easley on January 29, 2008

Last summer both Dale and I left our home in Washington to work in Alaska. For the past 14 years I had been spending my summers in Alaska working as a tour guide, but this year Dale was asked to come up as well to work as our motorcoach operations manager. For months prior we agonized over whether this would be a good move for him. We do, after all, have a house, a yard, and two cats to take care of. It would be impossible to just pick up and leave without someone to take care of things at home.

How could we find a housesitter?

I got on-line and did some research on housesitters and found a great resource in HouseCarers.com. This web site shares the profiles of thousands of people all over the world who are looking to either house sit or hire a housesitter. After filling out our profile and stating exactly what we were looking for in the way of a house sitter, the offers started to roll in.

We read the profiles of the people who were expressing an interest, and if they looked like a possibility, we would private message them back. Once you’ve communicated with a person on the web for awhile, you get to the point where you can decide if you’d like to exchange more private information like phone numbers and email addresses.

Like I said, we had lots of offers, but one stood out from the rest. It was a couple who had both recently retired from major companies in this area and moved to Arizona for retirement. They were not, however, too interested in spending the hot summer in Arizona and wanted to come back up here to be near their grown children.

They were coming up to Washington in April for their son’s wedding, so we had plenty of time to set up a meeting. We first met them for dinner at a local restaurant, and after that we felt comfortable asking them over to the house. Soon we came to a mutual decision that this would be a good working arrangement for both of us. I can only say that you have to listen to your gut feelings once you get to this point. For us these folks just “seemed right.”

Since we were both familiar with the guidelines of HouseCarers.com we all knew basically what to expect in the way of contracts and responsibilities. I was able to download a sample house sitting agreement from the web site and with a few modifications, made it work for us.

The HouseCarers site will answer many of your questions about housesitting. If you’re even remotely interested in getting a house sitter, or being a house sitter, we suggest you surf over there to do some reading. Here are some topics you’ll find interesting.

• What is House Sitting?
• What are the advantages of using a house sitter?
• What are the standard guidelines of a house sitting agreement?
• Why do people register to housesit?
• Who pays the bills during housesitting?
• Will house sitting affect my homeowners insurance?
• Should I require a bond or security deposit from my house sitter?
• How do homeowners and house sitters register and communicate?
• Making your decision – Steps to selecting your housesitter.
• Finalizing the arrangement – preparing a house sitting contract

What does it cost?

As a homeowner looking for a housesitter, you can register for free. If you’re the person looking to be a housesitter, there is a $45 annual membership fee. There is, however, a limited non-paid membership that allows you to try out the service, but does not allow you to actually apply for housesits.

So how did it work out for us?

It worked great! I have to admit, we were a little nervous about the whole thing to start with, but finding someone who had been well respected in our community prior to moving away was a big plus. They took care of our house like it was their own, and managed to keep the yard work in check. They also took good care of our cats.

One thing to caution you about if you have animals – be sure your housesitter knows how to reach your vet and that you have a payment option set up with the vet before you leave home. One of our cats, shown here, required a $250 surgery while we were gone, so I was grateful that HouseCarers.com had reminded me to make sure to include veterinary information in the agreement. We also had an issue with a broken water pipe while we were gone, and again, because we had included information on what plumber to call, our housesitters were able to get it resolved quickly.

And to top off our experience, our housesitters have recently contacted us again to see if we’re going to Alaska this summer because they want to stay in our house again. We haven’t decided yet on Alaska, but at least this year the decision will come easier.

So What’s the Take Away?

If you’re planning a trip and want your house to have that lived in look while you’re gone, or if you’re looking for a place to stay for short or longer term, take a look into housesitting. It’s another way to experience new places without spending a lot of money.