Six week sits (or longer)

I’ve used TH for several years and never had any problem securing house sitters for stays of 6 weeks or more when living in Greece. After all, what’s not to like about a villa with a pool, a nearby beach and wonderful views? Since returning to the UK, it’s been more difficult to find long term sits even though we have a lovely house in beautiful countryside with lots of attractions in the area.
I’ve been trawling through sitters but most seem to prefer short stays. There seems to be no way of filtering sitters who are happy to sit for a few weeks. Does anyone have any tips on how to identify such sitters?

The best way is to list - searching for sitters rarely results in a good match and there’s no way to filter .

We like long sits and in our first year confirmed a six week and a two month sit.

4 Likes

Just list a great profile and your dates. Sitters looking for a longer term option will apply.
I usually look for sits that are maximum two weeks but recently our situation changed. We have sold our house and are looking to perhaps rent for a few months while we find the right property. A month plus sit would be very attractive to us.

3 Likes

Well, the best advice is to create a listing. For example, we always prefer longer stays and the last one was now 4 weeks in June and before that almost 8 weeks over Christmas and New Year.

In Greece, you had very little competition. If there would be the possibility to do an island-hopping petsitting tour I might prefer that over a six-week stay in one location. But in Greece I see few listings, and then mostly small homes with very many cats, so of course I would apply to stay at the pool for six weeks!

In the UK you have a lot of competition. I did a tour of England this “spring”. Three weeks in Cambridge was nice, but in the rural places a stay of a week (Cotswolds, and north of Nottingham) was enough for me. And in England it was easy to string together a series of such sits.

As a sitter, I can filter listings for “Duration”. There are no options between “longer than one month” and “longer than six months”.

I guess that’s a personal choice. We stayed 8 weeks in Dartmoor area, which was actually a dream for us. But we love to hike and are not so much after entertainment and sightseeing…

We love the UK and we had multiple longer sits there and we gonna have one in August .
I always look for sits 1month+ and I know there are multiple full time traveller doing the same :slight_smile:

We love long sits, but we rely on public transport which can be an issue with more rural locations

1 Like

Hi @CharlieFarley. I’d love to see your listing. Have you got any dates for next year?

In our first year we did a six week sit and a two month sit in U.K. . We were hoping for the same again this year but haven’t seen any listed for dates when we are available or that didn’t overlap with a sit we had already confirmed.

We did see a six week sit that overlapped a confirmed sit by a couple of days so we could have come to an agreement with the owners and managed this (we sit as a couple ) but there is no way for us to contact the owners to let them know our availability . The listing remained without any applications for a long time - I don’t know if they found a sitter on THS or made alternative arrangements.

Thank you but I have listed. We also listed for the last two years and did eventually find sitters but it was very difficult and we nearly had to abandon our plans.

Perhaps if you share the listing on here then experienced members can help with the blockers? Sounds like a few are already interested in 6 week UK sits and can’t find any of them. We like them too just not in the UK!

#giveitatry

2 Likes

If you go Find a house sit → Location → Duration and drag the bar to one month +, it brings up 104 members seeking sitters.

Ours is ‘late summer house sit in the wonderful Yorkshire Wolds’ :smile:

Found it @CharlieFarley - a few small tweaks that would help. Cover pic as one or both of the dogs would be more of a draw than the house for us; add the use of a car tag if you want more sitters (currently looks as if it’s up for discussion); how long the dogs can be left for is always needed; pics are fine but some more light in some of them would really show off your space better. If you pause the listing and then reload with those amends that may help as you come up on the very last page of the 104 sit search at the moment which may be a blocker. #bestofluck

Your listing looks lovely. We would love to be your sitters except we are already completely booked through early February 2025 at this point, with our own travel plans.

Where do the dogs sleep? You might want to add that.

@Silversitters makes a good point. You might want to adjust your dates slightly, for example, 1 September to 12 October, and note that the dates are somewhat flexible. This might open up your options, since sitters who are already booked through the end of August cannot even contact you in the THS system anymore, with the new overlapping rule.

1 Like

Thanks to everyone for your invaluable suggestions which we will certainly act on. I’m so glad that I found this forum.

4 Likes

I would love to sit for you at some stage (booked already for your dates) as I have a good friend in Kirkbymoorside so am familiar with the area.
It would be very helpful if you could add how long Saffy & Scruffy can be left at home after they’ve had their morning walk. This is important information for potential sitters and so many home owners forget to include it.
Good luck, I’m sure you’ll find a great sitter/sitters

2 Likes

Messaged you.

1 Like

Have you check my listing? I would be happy to hear from you.