Thinking Of Getting A House Sitter?

If you're thinking of engaging with house sitters the below info will provide a bit of an insight into the world of house sitting, tips on interactions, what type of information to include on your listing, and how to keep you, your home and any beloved animals safe and sound. 

 Just booked that lovely holiday and want to go out for dinner to tell all your friends and family every amazing detail of your itinerary? Do yourself a favour and pause a moment.

Good house sitters are in demand, normally return to repeat clients and are well organised. Our calendar, like so many other full time housesitters, is already pretty much booked out 9 months to a year in advance so it’s important to know that you can’t post your ad too early!

Be mindful of the time of year you want a sitter too. Most people are looking to get away for public holiday weeks, Easter, Christmas, the school holidays, etc. so you are competing with a lot of other home owners looking for good sitters. As I write this in November, there's almost 100 sits a day going up which either include the Christmas holidays or just after. For most of these people it's probably too late to get house sitters. 

Luckily it's not difficult to get the process of finding your ideal house sitter started. You can easily place an advert within 30 minutes or less and, as long as it's clear, concise and has pictures, you can let the applications roll on in while you enjoy that celebratory dinner out telling everyone all about your plans. 

Let’s be honest, this is why a lot of people read these guides! Great house sitters do this for the love of the lifestyle and free accommodation but you’re still getting a service out of it. Consider a few things your house sitter will be doing.  

Where House sitters add value:

There are a lot of benefits to what is essentially letting a stranger into your home;

• Where animals are involved, the cost of putting them into care can be massive, and not to mention stressful to both them and you
• Security. Leaving your home unattended for any period of time can be concerning. Even good security systems won't necessarily stop the opportune criminal. 
• Keeping on top of general maintenance. Whether it's gardening, vegetable planting, cleaning.
• The unexpected. Have you ever returned from holiday to a defrosted freezer full of spoiled food due to a power cut issue? An ant infestation in the kitchen? Wasp nests in the roof? We’ve dealt with these and many other problems that arise when homeowners are away.

So if they’re adding value, does that mean I should be paying them?

In short, no. You shouldn’t need to. It’s a mutually beneficial service. You get all the above and they get a place to stay and enjoy. For many it's like a holiday without the expense. 

Exceptions to this would be when you run AirBnBs out of your property. It's not uncommon to request management of that in your absence in exchange for 50% of the booking fee for example. Or if you are desperate and need someone last minute. Having a monetary incentive will sweeten the deal if anyone is available at short notice, or even entice one half of a couple if they’re already local.

So if they’re getting a cheap holiday should I at least be charging for utilities?

Speaking for ourselves, one of the simplest reasons why we do this lifestyle is because it affords us to work less hours and enjoy more time together so it’s an instant red flag for us if anything about bills is mentioned because we simply can’t pay your bills. We’ve seen adverts with a lot of demands, everything from requesting utilities be covered every day we’re working from home, to the threat of disconnecting the internet unless the sitter agrees to cover the cost, with no negotiations considered. 

While it's your prerogative, we’d advise strongly against charging for utilities as you’ll likely put off all desirable candidates. But there’s nothing wrong with having the conversation during the ‘interview’ stage if you are concerned about the bills. Requesting they use the big appliances like washers during off-peak energy hours, opting to use the wood burner over the heat pump, etc are all reasonable requests that can be accommodated. 

Of course, there’s definitely things which you’re very much entitled to ask for. If you’re offering a vehicle for use then any excess if an accident occurs should be mentioned and requested to be paid for by the house sitter. Any vehicle fuel should definitely be covered by a sitter and we always make a point to leave a full tank and a clean car. 

If an appliance just breaks within normal use or something breaks due to severe lack of maintenance then that’s definitely your realm of responsibility. All incidental damages(like cups, broken window etc), food and general cleaning products or broken appliances which are 100% the house sitters fault are of course their responsibility.

It goes without saying this is an extremely high trust based model. You need to be honest about your home amenities, expectations of a house sitter, and any quirks about your home and animals. No parking? Regular treatments or vet trips expected for your animals? Off-grid? Specialty plants to deal with? Very large, strong dog to walk? Internet not unlimited? Crazy neighbours? Half way through a home remodel? Sheep need shearing? I could go on but you get the point of the type of things to think about.

Some tasks are pretty standard, such as gardening/lawn care, so you shouldn’t have any hesitation saying there are some things you'd appreciate help with which can be easily achieved with some written instructions for your sitter but there's no need to mention every detail of cleaning your home in your listing. The last thing you or a house sitter want is expectations not to be met so it's all about being practical and honest.

Placing any boundaries, rules or restrictions within your ad will save you and house sitters a lot of time. Just be mindful that too many of these may be casting your net too small, and you may end up with nobody, so it’s worth considering where you can be flexible. 

While it’s perfectly understandable to have a sitter preference such as single person of a certain gender where rescue pets with a tough start to life are concerned, I’d certainly urge flexibility if there isn’t a legitimate case for this due to house sitter personal safety or other demands of the property and/or pets. 

Age restrictions, and specifically asking for older people who are retired. Fair enough, you don’t want your pets abandoned all day and then your home turned into a club by night. Assuming this would be the case is excluding a lot of great sitters. Try instead asking for mature applicants with the ability to work from home…as long as you understand that a younger couple can be mature. 

Meeting in-person first. If you’re in a major city and your potential house sitter is nearby this might be okay, but still expect applicants who can do video chats only. It’s how many things are done now.

Once you’ve decided on a platform to post your ad, remember to exclude personal information like full names and street addresses, and save yourself a lot of time by ensuring your ad’s posted with pictures first. You might have the perfect home for the perfect house sitter, but a lot of sitters (us included) will probably skip past your ad. Or you’ll just be inundated with requests for photos.

You don’t need a lot of photos, but cover the basics: living area, kitchen, main bathroom, bedroom your house sitter will be using, garden. Try to get any features in there too that would really sell your property – BBQs, Spa Pools, big TV, swanky stove top (we love to cook so kitchen is our go to photo first). Mentioning any great parts of your local area as unique selling points is helpful too as your house sitter needs to imagine living there temporarily. We always look out for local regional parks and proximity to beaches for example.

You’ll hopefully have a few applications pretty quickly and your initial information to narrow down your search is the house sitter profiles and their reviews. If you don’t like their reviews, politely reject them as quickly as possible. Being quick in the initial filter process is a lot like filtering candidates for a job. The good ones might get snatched up by a competitor, and it's just polite to inform the ones not suitable for you so they aren’t waiting around for a response. 

Side Note: You may be wondering what type of people chose to become house sitters and there’s a plethora of reasons why people do it, making us a diverse bunch of all ages and backgrounds. You can have people who, like us, live life on the road full time and enjoy exploring new communities, those people who just absolutely love animals but for one reason or another don’t have pets themselves, people who use house sitting to extend their holidays as long as possible, and the increasingly popular type, those looking to reduce their outgoings and save to buy a house.

When you have your short list, arrange a call, video chat or in person meeting with your preferred sitter(s). This is the opportunity to really get to know a bit more about each others personalities, what can be expected on the handover, and date you’d agree to (remember, some people may be travelling between cities or islands) and start to talk about some finer details about your home and any animals. You’ll be able to get a feel with how comfortable the sitter is about your property and animals the more you chat. The interview isn’t meant to be an exhaustive handover list but an intro and to make sure everyone is comfortable with the arrangements and give you confidence that the house sitter can handle your requests with ease. Everyone needs to be personable, organised and clear with their communication so you can build up trust quickly. 

So now you have a bit of rapport with the potential house sitter, they seem right for the job, references look good, and they’re keen as...This is when you should request a copy of their police background check. Given these are free in NZ there’s no reason for a house sitter not to provide one, and it gives you that added peace of mind. 

So now you have your house sitter booked, and you are ready for your trip. Now what?

Get the preparation started. A lot of this is common sense and certainly not an exhaustive list. As long as you consider your house sitters as guests, have functioning appliances, leave the place reasonably clean and don’t leave dirty dishes or left over food laying around then you’re going to be golden. The below are a few extras worth noting.

The Handover: Organise when and how this will be done. In person handovers the day before for longer sits are expected by house sitters, but a weekend away doesn’t need to be overly complicated if it can be covered by a one page handover document and a key left in a safe space.

Most house sitting sites will provide you with a template handover document (in our experience they’re very light on detail) to complete, but often the experienced house sitter might have their own which they’ll send you well in advance. As long as you’ve got something in writing setting out the basics in terms of how to work things around the place, expectations on looking after animals, house, garden, etc. then it reduces the chance of miscommunication and sets the expectation and responsibilities for the house sitter clearly. 

Do The Admin: Check that your home insurance policy covers you while you have sitters. The last thing you want is a fire to break out and the insurance company doesn’t pay out due to some odd terms and conditions. If you’re giving your house sitter use of a car then add them to your policy. Also consider any bills and post during your absence and if you need to put things in place before going away.

Think Of The Animals: Buy enough pet food for the duration, and if you can’t then make sure to leave some cash and instructions if you want a certain brand. Ensure they’re up to date with flea and worm treatments, and any medications required are sorted beforehand. If necessary, phone your local vets and pre-pay for any medications likely to run out.

The Little Things: It’s worth taking some time to note down or keep track of some of the nuances about your property that you’ll likely need to mention. Good house sitters will either send over a questionnaire in advance or arrive with one in hand which is your chance to go through all the little quirks about your property and ensure everything’s noted before you leave. The last thing a house sitter wants is to bother you on holiday to ask a million questions like why an oven hob doesn’t work when you just know to avoid using that one.

Communication: Both platform and frequency. Your house sitter won't want to bother you while you're away so if you want regular updates or photos of the animals then be sure to let them know. It’s also worth having a procedure and emergency contact for any emergencies that need to be dealt with in your absence, especially where time zone differences are concerned. 

Property Maintenance: If you’re going away for a period of months then there’s naturally a bit more preparation involved. If you run off your own water systems then you should definitely be considering things such as filter checks and how much water/space is available in your tanks, do some extra weeding in the garden and note your long term plans (eg seeds planting out, mowing schedules), check over any heating appliance filters and test your smoke alarm batteries. If you have vehicles involved then checking when their warrant and registrations are due and organising that with your sitter is a must.

Clean And Organise: The general rule of thumb is leave the place as you’d wish to find it. How clean your house is when your sitter arrives sets the standards for their final clean. 

As a minimum, place fresh bedding in their room before you leave, and ensure there’s enough pantry, fridge and freezer space for your house sitter. If you have any particularly valuable or sentimental items you don’t want any interaction with then place these in a spare room or cupboard and let your sitter know. 

As a final note, after the sit has finished and you’ve returned from your time away to a clean home with happy animals, make sure to either submit a review of your house sitter on their preferred house sitting platform, or write a reference they can use for future house sits. These are so important, particularly for house sitters like us, who do this as their full time profession and lifestyle.