I am confused about how it works. I would like to travel so that we change homes and pets for a period of time. I spend holidays in your home and look after your cat, while you spend holidays in my apartment and look after my cat. Is this how TrustedHousesitter works?
Nope. Unless you happen to find a unicorn homeowner that happens to want to go to your location and also exchange. Generally speaking, if you want to travel, you apply for sits in your preferred location. And you are then responsible for finding sitters for your pet in your location. I think it’s possible, but not highly probable, that those two will coincide though.
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For that, there are other sites like homeexchange, I have done that. But there were no pets involved (well, a fish tank I remember now). I do not know if pet care exists as an explicit option, but it would of course always be negotiable. Like taking care of the garden in summer.
The exchange itself is simply this: the sitters stay in your home for free, dedicating part of their time taking care of your pets and being a presence in the house. Among a few requirements, they MUST sleep there.
I am both a sitter and a pet parent (2 memberships). Although I don’t exchange directly (eg I stay in Mary’s home and Mary stays in mine), I do use THS for both ends. So I arrange a place to stay with Mary and watch her dog and I find another sitter to stay in my home and look after my cats.
Hope that helps explain.
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I’m a sitter and a HO. I signed up to a couple of house swap sites and got no real response - the chances of the stars aligning are rare unless you have a luxury property and/or top notch location. If you’re asking for a cat sitter, you’ll get heaps of applications (in my experience), finding a sit for a cat is a bit more challenging but they are out there! You’re much better off finding a sit for yours and looking for where you want to go….If you’re willing to look after dogs and cats, the world’s your oyster!