You shouldn’t have any trouble getting sits leading into Christmas. School holidays start about 2/3rd week December and don’t go back until late January/early Feb. But you might not see them listed til October(ish) https://publicholidays.com.au/school-holidays/western-australia/2024-dates/
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@Brightlight been down this road on a previous thread 
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I highly recommend watching Aussiesitters as well, though more of their sits have 0 pictures!
I asked one homeowner and their response was basically, “All houses have the same things”. It’s a cheaper site so it seems less effort is put into it (as far as pictures and info), last minute seems to be the norm, and sometimes communication is slow.
However, I had 2 sits in Sydney with spectacular homes and locations, just had to get to the chat stage to find out more.
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Thank you, my DiL is a school teacher so we arrive in Perth 22nd Dec to stay with them Xmas/NY the plan is then to stay on through to the end of Jan and do house/pet sitting and fly home via Thailand maybe…
It’s frustrating for me that sits aren’t posted before October but on a previous thread I learnt that it’s mostly local travel not international travel over the Dec-Jan period. So I’ve learnt not to expect to see sits until later in the year.
I’m on a fb Perth house sitting group now and again it’s nearly all listings for not later than August atm. There’s also a worrying trend that HOs are sometimes charging $1000 to house sit their pets and stay on the property! Wow!
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Stay away from the Facebook sitting groups @BonnyinBrighton. You have been given great advice on this Forum as to the two sites in Oz which WILL have numerous sits for Xmas/New Year and you would be spoilt for choice once they start to become available. I know you are a planner but it’s just not how it’s done in Oz. If you are prepared to wait, join the other sites, and take it from there, you will save yourself a lot of angst.
This Facebook thing about asking for that kind of money, or any money, is nonsense. I am still on both the other sites and never once have I seen that asked for. I understand you need to plan for flights etc but the way I see your issue is, you are going to Perth regardless so just try to not be overly concerned about it all. Just because we do things a little differently doesn’t mean we are on our Pat Malone, I know a lot of HO’s in different countries don’t advertise until closer to the time. We are very chilled and there is PLENTY of time to find sits closer to, it’s only May!
Also, a lot of homeowners will advertise on both those sites as it is free to advertise for homeowners so they hedge their bets on both sites. Often there will be no pics, scroll on by, don’t consider them, it’s not worth it and is a red flag potentially.
In Australian terms, you aren’t there for long, we take long holidays so you will find that there will be PLENTY for straight after Xmas e.g. You can’t change how it is, you just need to go with it - it WILL happen! HO’s will be screaming out for sitters just like every other country will be at that time of year. You will have owners knocking your door down to sit as there is always a shortage of sitters at that time.
I won’t post again as it sounds like I’m a tourism ambassador for Australia and you are making your own choices of course, naturally. I have enough experience though to know what you can expect. Best wishes and good luck, and ignore that rubbish on Facebook groups from people who half the time have nothing better to do than cause trouble (of course there are always the good ones as well) Deep breaths 
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I’m on an OZ FB group and it’s definitely a bit of anarchy when there are no rules or expectations and the people that run the pages do so for their own (usually personal gain) reasons. I’ve only sourced one sit from there since joining nearly a year ago and it was fine (although we did formalise everything via aussie housesitters for reviews and such). I recently replied to a couple of posts as I’m desperately trying to fill a gap after a THS owner cancelled 15 days before the sit was due to start and their first questions were do you charge and then the second questions were respectively Can I add a tiny puppy to my two elderly high need dogs? and I only have an outdoor shower in my rustic cabin without WiFi, you don’t mind do you? Yikes on both counts, I’d rather splurge for a hotel…
You will have absolutely no problem finding sits around Christmas on the legit sites though. There are heaps (and heaps and heaps). The only problem is choosing one and then resisting the urge to check what else comes up.
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I thought I’d keep all my reviews in one place, perhaps that’s wrong thinking though….also I searched Aussiehousesitters and there were no sits in Perth for January so it seemed a waste of money to join right now.
But @BonnyinBrighton the membership is for one year, so takes you through till May next year! You won’t be needing the membership after you return to the UK. If you aren’t on it, you can’t apply if you aren’t registered when they DO start coming up. @B1anca has now reiterated my suggestions and thoughts and has also agreed that there will be heaps, and heaps and heaps available EVENTUALLY. MindaHome Australia is just as good. Membership for both are much cheaper and when I apply for sits through THS I advise any prospective HO that I have X number of reviews on another house-sitting site which I can forward under separate cover if required. Never been a problem.
Anyway, the Tourism Board said they won’t pay me for soliciting, sorry to harp 
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And @BonnyinBrighton - you can ask any of us for a code and get a few $ off. And about your reviews in one place: Don’t worry. Take screenshots of your reviews and add it as a photo to your new profile. Not everything has to be perfect. Because we have reviews in various places, I often would copy and paste some reviews from one website and add it to the bottom of my application on another website and say: see some of our reviews below…then it’s up to the owner if they are willing to pursue the application.
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@BonnyinBrighton the reviews are one of the reasons I stick with THS.
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That’s a great idea to screenshot reviews and add as a photo on another site 
thank you.
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Many thanks to everyone- and yes I certainly am learning a new mindset for those Australia sits.
So it appears I really need to be on x3 sites to optimise my Perth sits: TSH Aussiehousitters and Mindahome…. I’ll come to people for the codes for the last two so thank you for offering the discounts.
I didn’t want to spread myself too thin- I’ve spent 2 months really getting to grips with the whole THS ‘thing’…. and feel I mostly understand it all now- although a few things still surprise me and catch me out of course.
Has anyone noticed that I’m a : big planner, perfectionist, pedant, project control freak?! 
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Ummmm…yep!! 
You will find the other two sites waaay easy, nothing to do but apply, no application limits, all very, very easy.
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@BonnyinBrighton you should be asking where exactly in Perth the house is. Don’t expect the public transport options you have in the UK. You will have to rely on mostly bus transport if you don’t have a car.
Perth is in our biggest state of Western Australia with very vast travelling distances if you want to see anything outside of Perth. Flying is the best option unless you want to spend hours/days driving as trains are limited or non existent in most tourist areas.
Also Perth is very remote to the rest of Australia, so if you are making a long haul trip (a minimum of 17 hours if you fly direct from LHR) then hopefully you are coming for a significant amount of time to make it worthwhile, and not just for a 3 day sit.
As we’ve been to Perth many times and our son and DiL live there… we’re pretty aware of the travel options 
. This time we will arrive in Perth by train from Sydney it takes x4 nights, other times we’ve arrived by ship or airplane… we’re pretty seasoned travellers…We leave the UK mid November to go travelling in India and KL, then flying into Sydney to get the train to Perth- it’s been on our bucket list for quite a while. After leaving Perth maybe end of Jan/Feb we will go to Thailand … we visit annually so always fit it into other travels. In 2026 we plan a Vancouver Alaska then Perth trip… all our trips now have to include Perth
We use our son’s city car when we’re in central Perth but sometimes hire a big SUV for going down to Albany Denmark etc. The 3 night sit we’ve agreed to so far is just a 40 minute drive up in the hills so not far and we will borrow our son’s car or he might do a drop off/pick up.
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Fabulous! The Indian Pacific is amazing @BonnyinBrighton one of the world’s best train journeys. It was also on our bucket list which we did 2 years ago but Perth to Sydney. Just incredible. You will love it!
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We were booked on that train for April 2020. Guess what happened. Yes, guess. Nothing.
Oh dear did you get a refund?
Yes, less a $50 cancellation fee
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We were on our way home from Perth March 2020 and got ‘stuck’ at Raffles Singapore and were given a triple upgrade with our own Butler as there were no guests a strange but weirdly wonderful experience to have the whole hotel to ourselves virtually (there was maybe 10 guests in total).
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