Yes, we all have choices. Including discussing our choices on a public forum geared toward house sitting. So others who ask, are able to make their own informed choices, as the landscape changes.
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Absolutely! What better placeā¦
Grateful that this platform has this option.
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Oh, I just paid an additional fee for the ID check. I have no criminal record or anything to raise alarm bells but even admin are taking their sweet time to do it for me manually.
Luckily, I have had two people interested in me sitting for them despite this.
I have been on quite a few house sits and weigh up what it would of cost in accommodation. I also factor in the hard yakka muscle work I have endured with cleaning the house and after the adoring pets and I think I did alright!
I am looking forward to doing this internationally next year.
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@Smiley I am a New Zealander living in Europe and I suggest for those looking for pet/housesits there the best site, we have found, is The Housesitting Company. They have an enormous number of sits currently - no āpausing after 5ā nonsense and in our experience, great customer service. They do require security checks though.
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Thatās good to hear.
Thatās a very nice site, @KiwiSwede . It would be very nice if they would expand to the US, Europe and beyond. If so, they could be a very good alternative to the pause-after-five platform. I have just dropped them a line.
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Hi @KiwiSwede I havenāt heard of the Housesitting Company before but will take a look. Iām off to NZ on 31/10 & have got 4 sits through kiwihousesitters, which I joined in addition to THS. My other 2 sits are with a lady I sat for in the North Island pre pandemic via THS. She moved to the South Island so have agreed the sits privately
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@KiwiSwede Iāve looked at The Housesitting Companyās site - very interesting. It appears it charges the HOs a fee for pet sitting, depending on the number of pets and the duration of the sit.
There is a minimal annual membership fee for Sitters of $59 NZD.
Hmmmā¦
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Yes, and NZ$59 has been the cost for several years now and a lot less than THS fee for sitters and a lot less than US$59 or even less than AUS$59. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think their insurance cover is pretty good too, at least it was when I joined in 2017. They even held my subscription over when I couldnāt travel there due to Covid which I thought was great service. All I had to do was notify them when I was going to be active again and they didnāt require another security check. @Smiley @mars I think youāll both be pleasantly surprised with their service and choice of sits. Good luck!
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I agree in general with your sentiment and in most cases, I try to look at the positive and make things work for us. If we were only looking for sits in the UK, THS would continue to be awesome for us. But weāve done 5 years of sits there and really want to go to some other parts of Europe, mainly Italy and France.
For us, āmaking it workā will likely mean having to move away from housesitting in general - no complaining, just reality. We want to go where we want to go and if we canāt find housesits in those places, we will rent Airbnbs or VRBOs.
We will be happy either way, and there are pluses and minuses to both types of travel - no pets means more freedom and less cleaning. But that is also a negative because we also love having a home and pet to care for instead of simply being in a rental.
Still, for us, location is the most important part of travel so we will keep our membership for another year and see how it goes. But if we go a full year without finding a sit, we will likely move in another direction in order to āmake it workā.
However, Iām pretty certain that will not involve joining another housesitting site. I donāt believe there are any bigger and better sites than THS.
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@Kelownagurl I have no first hand experience, but have you looked at Nomador which is a French pet/housesitting site. There seem to be quite a number of sits in France, as well as Italy.
We, like you, are location driven. We travelled to Spain quite soon post Covid and while we had a fantastic 4 week sit over Christmas and New Years in Madrid, the remaining 4 weeks we travelled where we wanted, using Airbnb. We tried to find sits that would fit, but nothing aligned. We had wanted to visit Spain for some time, but did not want to deal with the massive crowds, especially in Barcelona. We took advantage of the timing and saw everything we wanted.
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That sounds lovely and wonderful.
For me āmaking it workā means doing what works best for me and we have to find what works best for each of us at the moment in time we are in.
Nothing should be forced because that is a different type of work that creates all sorts of unpleasantries.
So if we come to a crossroads that is where we make a decision. I understand exactly what you are saying. I made a decision to go to Uruguay and I am committed to that choice. I have two sits booked for a total of 5 weeks give or take a few days. South America is not inundated with sits. So essentially I am no longer a full time nomad or sitter. I will have a base.
I have already made some connections and established relationships through networking and just putting myself out there, talking and meeting more people and I am not even there yet. What is happening is surreal and my path has shifted. Pets are definitely a part of my future.
Both of my HOās have invited me to visit and offered to show me around. One of them has a daughter who is a veterinarian in my town. She knows my landlady who owns two cats and there is so much moreā¦ I wonāt bore you with details.
But the point is if one does what works for them, without getting all twisted up and complaining about what you need to do to make what works for you happen, then life is easy peasy. Just go and do what you need to do, peacefully and gracefully.
Thatās just my personal view and what works for me because well it works, for me, and my heart is full and happy.
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Iāll check it out, thanks!
I completely understand, I am comparing it to other house sitting sites. I have been house sitting for over 20 years and prior to that used one of the original house sitting sites when we had our dog, so I appreciate it from both sides. I was merely stating that this site is expensive, and it is, compared to others.
Iād love to know what the names of these Facebook groups are!
Search for city/country + petsitting / homesitting and youĀ“ll find countless groups. Join the ones with the most members and posts per day
@anon47943759; āFacebookā?
shudder
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Well this was a fascinating thread and it only randomly popped up in my list of latest stuff; so glad it did.
The whole thread has shown me these things:
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The Americas and the Antipodes maybe have some viable competitors to THS (and much as Iād love to be jetting off to those locations itās not possible for us right now)
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For UK sits and British expats and European sits THS is by far the best quality site (yes, IMHO) because of the reduced (it can never be negated) chance of neāer-do-wells on either side.
And a number of other points that I wonāt labour now.
I really, really hope that THS resists any urge to downplay or abandon their unique place in the market. Business drivers dictate that income must be maximised, everysingle successful enterprise must follow this principle but there are special businesses that also value the customers upon whom they depend. Businesses that listen, that respond and that provide the services their customers are prepared to pay for. This is what we expect from THS.
If customers donāt get what they want and find they canāt vote with their feet; some bright spark will create a platform that is a serious rival.
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And to be noted, this āpublic forumā is made available by and managed by THS.
There is no other to my knowledge that offers anything comparable.
And I can safely say the Americas has nothing that even comes knee high to THS.
I will go back to my happy beach now.
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Iād love to get myself a happy beach, @Amparo!
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