@steplinn if your home is clean, your home is clean and sitters appreciate a clean home, no matter the number of toilet brushes. The mood changes when the home is not clean.
Just curious, where does your one toilet brush sleep? If it’s in your en-suite, and you have a guest over who’d like to use a toilet brush, would they have to ask you for one? Or scrabble around with toilet paper in the bowl to prevent an uncomfortable situation? We are pretty frugal, but I grew up with a toilet being a private space, and each toilet having a brush, so that you can come out of the toilet, leaving it fresh for the next user.
I’ve bought inexpensive reading lamps for bedside and cheese planes for people. I now mention a reading lamp in my requests but am amazed that people don’t have cheese planes for thin slicing cheese.
@toml If I need sliced cheese, I just use a sharp knife, but it may not be as thin as you’d like. I have also had someone question why I don’t have an ice cream scoop. I use a spoon and scoop it. Maybe not as pretty but it still tastes as good. I am a minimalist at heart.
These are small items. I’d buy them without question and leave them in an obvious place. But I agree with previous poster that to “gift” them would be snide and petty.
If you ever come to NZ, please venture our way. My husband’s a cheese lover, has what you require & we can point you towards The Geraldine Cheese shop .
On our second house sit and discovering what is “essential” for me. Apart from some decent cooking equipment (which we have been lucky in having in each sit) having a good range of herbs and spices is important for us. I think I will put together a small pack of spices and herbs as we are keen cooks and buying new of everything really isn’t worth it for an individual sit. I have bought some very small plastic containers and will make up a pack for the next sit.
We bought a cheap toaster (like really cheap…) at Kmart for a three week sit. My partner has toast every morning and $7 felt like a fair price to have it! We left it behind as we were flying elsewhere (or else we would’ve kept it- the next place didn’t have one either!) and we mentioned it in our send off note. We got a cheery ‘lol’ in response so I doubt feelings were hurt. We also bought some brown lunch bags to use a poop bags for the cat litter as their system didn’t work for us. They didn’t seem to mind these either.
I suppose I usually message if something I need (like cleaning supplies) is missing and if they say they don’t have it, and I buy it, I don’t see why they would be upset about it. But I never thought of it as cheeky because I always communicate it. Probably wouldn’t leave it as a surprise ‘gift’ though.
Reading through these posts of things home sitters have bought and left for home owners makes me think I could end up with a lot of ‘stuff’ I have no use for which is therefore clutter that I’m stuck with disposing of. I’d really rather they took it with them.
That’s exactly what we’ve done @lizbcn Those spices have come in handy many times. We stay in vacation rentals almost as often as we pet sit. The spices usually come in the rentals more than the sits.
As to gifts for the homeowners, we usually leave behind a bouquet of flowers, particularly if we’re within the State. If we’re out of State, I’ll buy a couple of kitchen towels with a Colorado symbol and the animal we’re sitting - a dog or cat. Or I’ll get one of each (dog and cat) if there are multiple animals in the household. Who doesn’t need a new kitchen towel?
Hi @pc10328 welcome back to the forum it’s been a while … we missed you!!
What a lovely idea and yes …
In your time away from the forum where have you been it would be lovely to hear about any pet sitting adventures you’ve had and who you’ve bought tea towels for?
A tea towel is my favorite souvenir from a place I’ve visited. And I’m not even British – well, I guess from way back I am, since my original settler to America came from England in 1685. It was either that or be beheaded by King James after supporting the Duke of Monmouth.
Hello, I’m very new and have just completed my first 2 house sits and have 4 more booked which is very exciting. I’m learning a lot from this forum so thought I would add an idea for a thank you gift which may cause a giggle. Here in Aus we have a company called About the dog that makes recycled toilet paper with half the profits going to the RSPCA. Each roll is wrapped in a paper cover which has pictures of cartoon style cats and dogs and other pet related things so I thought of leaving a roll with a thank you card at the next sit I do. I’m sure there are some of you who will think this is pretty wierd but we do things differently here in Aus!. I’ll let you know how the HO reacts.
Hi @catlady We never heard of that. We do not leave gifts (when sitting) and as HOs, we don’t expect our sitters to leave gifts. To us, the best gifts are regular communications during the sit and upon our return, happy pets and a clean house. We are concerned that this gift thing might make some people anxious, so we stick to the THS basics, as I just cited here.
Hi @Rascal, what a great start you’ve had sitting! Really interested in About the Dog recycled toilet paper being an Aussie as well. I usually get What the Crap but this is a much better option where 50% goes to the RSPCA. I’ve already checked the website out, so thank you!
I am a minimalist at heart. 
.
Those spices have come in handy many times. We stay in vacation rentals almost as often as we pet sit. The spices usually come in the rentals more than the sits.
