My first applicant is a local, young woman who works a few blocks from where I live. What is the motivation for this? I’m kind of thrown off by this type of applicant. Is she homeless? There is a lot of that in the area!?
There could be all sorts of reasons why she’s applying for a local sit. When I started I applied for local sits because I had heard it was hard to get accepted for a first sit as I had no reviews (4 good references but no reviews). Being local meant that I could visit the sit rather than have a video chat with owners, that way they could see how I interacted with their pets and get a better sense of who I was and vice versa. It was helpful to me because I was slightly nervous about how the whole thing worked but, being close to home, I wasn’t taking a massive leap into the unknown.
Why don’t you ask? Is she new? If so, it’s recommended to get started by doing some local sits to build up reviews. If not new, have you read her reviews?
Not sure why you would ask this question before doing your own checks….
We sit local-local about once every 2-3 months.
Why? Our own home became a holiday cottage when we started sitting, but we still want to visit our family, especially my partners elderly mother. So we sit nearby. It’s more fun than staying in our own home and we’d also prefer to earn income off it.
We also return to sit for the same group of people at ‘home’, so we have about 6 sets of owners whom we regularly sit for within about 10-30 minute of our home, and his mothers home, who understand why we’re doing it, they know our story. Those owners quite often ask us when we’re available, before they’ve even booked their trip, not always if they take multiple trips per year, but often.
The rest of the time we fly to Spain to sit to be nearer our son and his family, so we can stay with our son some of the time, and then pet sit so we don’t get under their feet, and then pop back to visit our son, it’s a brilliant way of life. Again, we’ll return to sit for the same owners too. Because they also know ‘our story’ and they know we are going to turn up when we say we will, because it’s about family.
Your sitter may also be focused on getting some reviews under their belt if they are newer. Sitting locally gives them an advantage and you, because you don’t need to worry about them not liking your location, because they already know it. Plus they are choosing to spend their time with pets, rather than travel somewhere exotic, and that’s good to know on your side because they could be real pet lovers.
We’ve done this for 3 - 3.5 years now, and 100% of our time has revolved around not being too far away from my partners mother and making visiting our son do-able for a longer period (giving they live in a different country).
We’re now ready for a bit of change and to travel elsewhere via pet sitting, but the majority of our year will still revolve around our family.
Ask them why they sit locally and they’ll totally open up to you in a natural way. It doesn’t need to be in a video chat when you ask, just do it via message. We usually write why in the message we send that accompanies our application as to why we sit on the doorstep, but everyone is different.
Hope that helps 
could i also just add… with regards to this:
Our own home is a holiday cottage, I own rental properties too, but yet we class ourselves as living out of our car and/or homeless, because we rarely go ‘home’. There are different forms of homelessness especially in pet-sitting-land, those that chose to live the most fantastic full time life surrounding themselves with furry friends, and those where it has happened our of life-circumstances.
Some of the owners we sit for class us as homeless too, but in an affectionate way. We do not have a home anymore, we are homeless.
No-fixed-abode doesn’t suit our lifestyle, because that would imply we were in between homes/abodes.. we aren’t.
There are loads on the forum that don’t have a ‘home’ anymore, instead they have the most amazing lifestyle ever.
She might want to escape a roommate, she might want to build up reviews, she might want to try out THS, she might have an annoying family, she might love your breed of pet…all are completely valid reasons for doing a local sit. #askthequestion
I have done quite a few local sits and I have my own home in a capital city. One dog I sit for 5 mile away is a Dachshund, my favourite breed, I search for Dachshunds sits. My most frequent sit to date, (x 5 now), is an adorable little terrier 15 miles away, and I recently sat for a Cocker Spaniel 12 miles away. Perhaps invite the girl for pre meet and see how your pets like her. Does it really matter to you how/where she normally lives? < removed >
Moderation note: edited post as per community rules
She was good enough to apply - just have a conversation and find out if you are a good fit for each other.
I have done local sits just to help out if they weren’t generating applications. Sadly, this is unlikely to continue because of the new booking fee.
Hi @jgz
Welcome to the forum,
There lots of good answers and suggestions for you to consider.
Do let us know how your sit goes and come back to the forum with any questions you may have. 
@jgz here’s a link to my post relating to your question. Using the spy glass to search key words often provides the answers someone is looking for. It’s a good idea for members to first use this approach. 
I’ve been a sitter on this site for more than 10 years. My two most recent sits were within one hour from my home. Both were lakeside and gave me a totally different lifestyle from my usual city living.
I think there’s a difference between homeless and nomadic. You’re the latter.
Right now I’m sitting a lovely cat in my own city. I didn’t even intend to be here now because of the heat but when I saw this last minute sit, I decided to change my plans, drive 120km, leave my car in my own parking spot, take a taxi to get the hist’s keys in a different part of the city and another taxi to get to the apartment. Tomorrow, when I leave it’ll probably be too hot to walk home or even take the bus, so I will probably get another taxi ride.
My apartment is all for myself, no flatmates or family to escape from, no new area to explore because nothing here is new to me and I can’t stand the heat anyway so why bother? Very simple, I just love the pets’ company but I also love the freedom of movement that I am not yet ready to lose or restrict, that’s why I petsit and that’s why I sometimes apply for local sits.
It’s true that most dictionaries define “homeless” as
having no home
and the term has a negative connotation associated with being poor and unable to afford a permanent residence.
but Merriam Webster definition is
having no home or permanent place of residence
On the other hand, “nomadic” is also associated with two ideas that don’t apply here:
- belonging to a group of people that move from place to place together, usually seasonally and
- roaming about from place to place aimlessly
So I think @HappyDeb is using the term correctly, especially given that it’s the term they’ve chosen to define their lifestyle.
In language, there are often situations where it’s not a question of right or wrong, sometimes the accuracy of a term is a conscious choice by the speaker even if that means being associated with a negative perception (sometimes because of it). There’s a whole phenomenon regarding this topic called appropriation and reappropiation of language
I wouldn’t describe my life as nomadic (but I know a lot on here would ). We’ve only travelled to 2 countries in the whole of the time we’ve been pet sitting (and 1 of those is our own country), and only within a 1.5 hour radius within each of those countries, which doesn’t make me personally see it as nomadic.
Before we started pet sitting we travelled much further distances and to more countries. Whereas now we don’t travel that far afield, because we’re discovering pretty little villages we only ever passed through en-route to somewhere else, that we now get to enjoy living in as a local for a short while instead. Love it!
If we were traveling around further afield, I would probably see it as nomadic, but I don’t.
“Nomad” has increasingly been used to describe individuals who telecommute and have no home, out of choice.
Language evolves nonstop and dictionaries aren’t updated till after changes or trends have already happened.
That’s true about paper dictionaries, online dictionaries evolve almost as quickly as language.
Anyway, neither language nor dictionaries follow a monolithic evolution. Social phenomena very rarely raise consensus.
It’s true “nomad” is widely accepted to refer to a whole new phenomenon, while “homeless” is probably more commonly avoided to refer to that or similar situations, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
I was informed that the new technical term for someone that has no home/place to live is “unhoused”. Meaning someone who does not have control over where they live - i.e., couch surfing, shelters, outdoors,…
Yes, that’s been around for a bit.