I’m very curious. I was asked to come out to a friend’s house in Emmett Michigan and house/pet sit while she went to Florida to care for a sick relative. She has 18 animals: 5 cats, 3 dogs, 3 Sugar Gliders, & 7 goats. It was supposed to be for 2 weeks and I was going to be staying there overnight. It turned out to be 45 days and it turned out to be emotionally difficult for me. In addition, I was expected to and did buy my own food and beverages and was never offered any type of compensation. I don’t think I was even thanked. What would someone expect to be paid for this type of care and commitment? I appreciate anyone that can answer.
no one on this platform gets paid.
for off platform, i’d say $50-100/day depending on location and duties.
doesn’t sound like this person is actually a friend
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My opinion is they are not much of a friend!
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I’m sorry the good deed you did for your friend didn’t meet your expectations, I take it it wasn’t arranged via THS? It seems an issue you need to highlight or take up with your friend but I understand that’s maybe not comfortable.
We’ve house sat full time for six years on THS and it’s an exchange with the opportunity to stay in new places, care for wonderful homes and wonderful pets, no money is changed hands.
Often people share a meal for the first night or offer you the perishable goods from the fridge but nobody would expect the HO to feed them for the entire stay. We all have to buy food wherever we are so it’s no different from normal life.
Hi there
Sorry to hear you didn’t have a good experience. If this was an arrangement between you and a friend, she may have seen this as nothing more than a favor and didn’t think you were expecting compensation.
I imagine most people in this case would offer to pay something, especially since it does involve so many animals (and perhaps offer money for food and/or allow anything to be used in the house) but receiving money should not be assumed, especially if it wasn’t mentioned right upfront. And this would be the case whether the amount of time she asked you to stay was extended or not.
If you were expecting she would pay you, that is definitely the sort of thing that should be discussed before agreeing to do it. At this point, you could ask for money if you really wanted, but I would probably just let it go and use this as a valuable learning experience moving forward.
And if you are thinking about asking for money, what amount do you have in mind?
Are you hoping she will just throw you a few hundred bucks, or are you planning on asking her to compensate you fully for the amount a paid sitter might have charged? Let’s say you went with the above suggestion of 50 to 100 a day–even at the lower end of the scale, you are talking over $2,000.
In this scenario, where you didn’t give any indication you expected to be paid–by way of not directly asking about compensation-- I don’t think it would be reasonable to request the going rate for pet sitting services after the fact given the amount of money that would entail. But this is just my personal opinion and there is no right or wrong approach.
When it was supposed to be 2 weeks, it was a favor (a really, really big favor). However, when it turned into 6.5 weeks, your ‘friend’ should have considered some form of compensation. But now how to bring it up? I might consider initiating it as:
‘I need to let you know that it was a lot more work and time than I anticipated and I must advise you that I wouldn’t be able to do it for you again’.
She might take the hint but I wouldn’t count on it