Question for Owners

Hello Everyone; looking a lot quieter here these days isn’t it?
Just to recap, I’m a very novice sitter, so I’m not speaking from any position of authority.
I saw a sit on the site recently and it looked good until getting to the part where the owners wanted the sitters to pay the utility bills. It was quite a long term sit - is this normal? Reasonable? An increasing tendency?
As a sitter, I presume I am in your home primarily to take the very best care of your bambini pelosi. You also have the added bonus of me keeping your home occupied & therefore more secure, warm if appropriate and being in situ to respond to emergencies such as burst pipes or weather damaged structures or power failures, the sorts of things that can happen in absentia. Of course I will also keep it clean & tidy as it would be if it was left empty.
What, therefore, are the arguments for asking me to pay to do this?

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@Saltrams Never ever been asked to pay any bills or contribute to expenses anywhere. Not sure we’d contemplate a sit where that was mentioned.

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@Saltrams I have wondered about sits where they ask you to pay utilities. It doesn’t make sense to me, don’t they need to heat or cool the house for the pets anyway? We did have a 6-month sit that they asked us to contribute $100 US per month, but in the end, they changed their minds and we paid nothing.

I think no matter how long the sit is, you need to be clear on what temperature the owners keep the house. You don’t want them to return and have a huge bill. It is also up to the owners to let sitters know if they are concerned about utility bills.

There was one housesit in Scotland that asked for utilities to be paid, so I asked them about it. They got very defensive, so we withdraw our application.

The question is, is the sit still worth it if you need to pay the utilities? The one or two others we have looked at, it wasn’t worth it so we never applied for them.

Another reason sitters need to read each listing very carefully, to make sure it is a good match for all.

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Great point about being careful with the listing @worldtraveler.
FWIW, we had no intention to apply for the sit in question; I just wanted forum feeling on the matter.

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We definitely wouldn’t be interested in any sit that asked for a contribution either.

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I certainly feel that way; it feels like it isn’t within the spirit of THS somehow.

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Hi Saltrams,

As a home owner, I’d certainly never ask a sitter to pay utility bills! Seems pretty cheeky to me. And definitely not in the TH spirit.

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Quid pro quo. The motto holds good in theory but I would be fearful of such an agreement in a large, older, rambling country property belonging to prosperous owners whose heating bills are equivalent to the sitter’s monthly mortgage payments.
I still believe that the question is essentially in opposition to the ethos of THS.

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In the immortal words of Tony Hancock (he was a British comedian): “Do you know, I hadn’t thought of that!“

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House/pet sitters are providing a free, voluntary service. Sometimes we are looking after several pets, and with much love and care! We are also looking after the home so that the house/pet owners can have peace of mind while they are away. This is invaluable. (The home is occupied, and therefore much less likely to be broken into, or to flood.) If house/pet owners paid for such a service, they would be spending in the £100s, and even £1000s - depending on the length of the sit, and the number of pets. Sometimes the behaviour of the pets can be challenging. Then there is bathing the pets - especially if they have rolled in something nasty (which can happen every day, twice a day!) cleaning up after them, taking responsibility for their wellbeing, etc. etc. I don’t think sitters should be asked to pay utility bills. There may be circumstances where I might think differently - if it was just a matter of feeding a single independent well-adjusted cat, for example - for a very long sit. But in a cold country, the home needs to be heated anyway to some extent, whether it is occupied or empty.

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We would think very carefully before paying for utilities.
We did a sit in Vietnam where a meter reading was taken and we agreed if we used more than they would have we would pay the difference. We didn’t, all was good.
We also did a sit in a big, very draughty house in France. We know the HO was back in the U.K. working, and at the last minute had suggested we could pay €50 for 10 days. We ignored this suggestion but we were very careful with the heating. Sadly the logs for the fire were damp and didn’t burn well and the paraffin heater kept turning itself off as it was faulty and producing carbon monoxide. When she came home and it was us that got back out of bed to turn the heating off having been cold for the whole sit we were less than impressed!

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Well I may be slam busted from this group for my views here which run contrary to all the posted comments. I am a HO and I have requested payment of heating bills. Why? Last sit I was away for 7 months. Usually it will be 4-5 months with most of these over winter. It gets cold here and heating costs are not within my control. My last sitters were able to manage with living a bit chilly to keep their costs down. Some people are not. I could face 100s of euros cost in heating bills each month as I could not control the usage. No, it would not work at all. I could not deal with all the costs associated with going away. As Provence has stated the sitter can stay in my house for free looking after 2 cats.

I feel that if this situation doesn’t work for the sitter they can just not apply - their choice. I have put this requirement on the sit details. Most sitters do not read the details. But I have had sitters who are fine with this request so we collaborate to make the situation work for both parties. That is, to me, the essence of HS.

ps. I did confirm with HS that this was OK before I went ahead with these terms. They said, with long sits it was acceptable.

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Thank you Kerri and thank you fo your post and transparency.

I took a long term sit in Spain (8 months) agreeing to contribute to the utilities which can spiral, I did so for many reasons but mostly I feel the cold and wanted freedom with the thermostat but not at the owner’s expense who was also accommodating completely with many other aspects including as many visitors as I wanted and who agreed the use a vehicle for the entire sit.

“Collaborate to make the situation work for both parties”

Requests by owners for contributions towards costs is permitted providing full disclosure is included in the listing making sitters completely aware before they apply.

Thank you again Kerri.

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Precisely the situation I have here Angela. Thank you for verifying there are situations where this is workable for both parties.

And of course YES I have made this upfront on the post. Many sitters do not read the details though. But that is for another discussion.:slight_smile: :sweat_smile:

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I am not shocked when an owner asks for a reasonable contribution in the event of exceeding his usual consumption of heating and / or electricity in case of long sit. I understand that, and if agreed in advance. After all it is not an hotel. It is a matter of mutual respect. When I am not at home, I turn off the heating, and I ask somebody to turn on one or two days bebore I come back.

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I agree… I saved the HO US$1,500 for looking after their pets for 4 weeks, they were so happy not to have to pay that bill and went on to provide everything I needed.

Sitters are providing a service that HO would otherwise have to pay a lot more than the heating bill if they choose to leave their home in winter months!

If HO don’t wish to provide heating for free for their sitter and pets then maybe they should only go away in summer…

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I would not pay anything to sit for someone’s house or pet no matter how grandiose it is, I provide my services for free and have my own home bills to pay!

You seem to assume that sitters are transient with no home of their own, and, therefore should be expected to contribute just because they don’t have to pay rent or mortgage whilst saving HO large amounts of costs avoiding having their pets housed in kennels/catteries etc.

Its a two way deal and without money being exchanged it is win win…

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Was really surprised on our last sit.
The owner showing us around there home.
Very impressed by themselves and rightly so they worked hard for it.
But like yourself we have a beautiful home.
We worked hard for it
sometimes it gos over people heads .
That we do it for the love of it.
Not to stay in glamorous homes.
Could stay at my sons and do nothing
Stay by the pool for a few weeks.

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Peter, I am not here to justify my actions to you or be lectured on what I think or actions I should take. If you were to see my post and did not agree you could move on. We all have choices which we do not need to justify to strangers.

I wondered how long it would take for someone to hone in on the phrase “stay for free” and I see it was you Peter very quickly. Such is the world today on social media. Better to stay off them.

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Further…for those of you who are outraged at the idea of sharing heating costs during a long sit, there is a simple answer “do not apply for the sit”. We, who have expressed the idea is warranted under certain conditions, did not ask you to make us justify our decisions or accept your outrage that we might have a different view than yours. I have certainly not expected you, who disagree with my view, to justify your thinking to me.

The question was posed here and some of us responded. Can those of you who have expressed a desire to make us justify our decisions please just accept that in this world people do not all see things the same way and that its OK!!

I am sure there are plenty of other things to do with your time rather than try to make us change our views to yours because that will not happen. Thank you. Can we move on now?

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