Hello friends. It's been a while since we talked. It's just over a year since we started this house sitting adventure and I thought it would be a good time to do a little Q&A, using the questions that get posed to Penny and me on a regular basis.
"Where do you find your house sitting jobs?"
There are a few websites I check a couple of times per day. Our "go to" ones are Trusted House Sitters, House Sitters Canada and House Sitters America. We pay a subscription fee to all of them but they make it easy for us to be selective about the jobs we accept. All of them have a profile we've submitted that describe our skills and experience, like a resume. Homeowners post the timeframes they're trying to fill along with descriptions of their properties, location and pets. We can apply to their posts or they can approach us directly.
"Do you get paid for house sitting?"
There are rare occasions where a homeowner will offer to pay for our services, usually where some kind of special experience is required. Otherwise we don't get paid for what we do. It's a fair trade since we get to live in a house, in a location of our choosing, for free. That means no hotels and no restaurants (unless we want to), which makes for very inexpensive travel. We do have to care for their pets, which is no problem given we've always had dogs and cats, and we make sure we leave the house clean and tidy.
"Do you need any special qualifications?"
People want to know you're responsible, clean and able to handle their pets the way they would themselves. Skills, like gardening and home repair, are desirable since people are leaving you with their house and would prefer the plants were still alive when they return and that the house doesn't burn down while you're there.
"Are people comfortable leaving their home and pets to total strangers?"
This is a question I ask every homeowner when we arrive. After a year it still amazes me people do this. Homeowners' only exposure to us is what we provide in the profile and any impressions they might glean for a half-hour video chat. The websites we subscribe to perform perfunctory vetting so people can be reasonably sure they're not connecting with axe murderers or cannibals. That's it. I think the websites' reputation is what gives the homeowners the confidence to invite us to look after their home and animals. It seems pretty thin to me but it works. I guess people want to trust you until you give them reason to think otherwise.
"What are the best and worst places you've been?"
If you've been following the blog you'll likely know the answers to this question but, for those of you who aren't constant readers, I'll try to summarize with links to previous episodes.
Best (in no particular order):
- Greece. It was a historical smorgasbord with beautiful coastlines, low off-season prices and interesting food.
- American Atlas Obscura oddities. The ol' Atlas makes some really boring drives fun.
- Missile Silo in Arizona. Almost a year later and this one still resonates.
- Yellowstone National Park. Iconic and jarringly beautiful.
- South Oregon Coast. Rugged, unpopulated and spectacular.
- Minnesota. This one kind of snuck up on us. Unexpected and wonderful. We've been invited back twice now and we'll definitely go back... as long as Tom lets me drive the tractor 😁.
- The Tail Of The Dragon. If you like to drive then this is Nirvana. Not like Smells Like Teen Spirit. The other Nirvana. Don't take the RV.
- Any place we were able to meet up with familiar faces. David and Michele in Vancouver, Larry in Revelstoke, Bryan, Sheila and Shiri in Calgary, Alex and Jen in Minneapolis, Ben and Sandra in Mobile and Kate in Cyprus. That makes any place a favourite.
- Baltimore. I like the ballpark. The rest? Not so much. Let's just say the highlight was buying a sweatshirt imprinted with "Baltimore. There's More Than Murder Here." There was an interesting cemetery but it wasn't worth the traffic, living in the midst of a slum or the pissy homeowners who outright lied about the property.
- Mobile. Before we committed to the sit I did a lot of research which indicated it was an interesting creole mix of French, Spanish, English and American. It was where Mardi Gras was celebrated long before New Orleans. A famous Civil War battle took place there. Close to beaches. Great, right? Wrong. Slummy. Racist. Minimal diversity in food and culture. Uninteresting history. The beaches were ok.
"Do you get tired of traveling all the time?"
It depends on when you ask. There have been a few instances where we've both asked, "Are we done yet?" Like, two weeks into a month-long sit in a not very interesting place (see Cyprus), or two days in the middle of a one week stay in a slum (see Baltimore). Last summer, it would have been ten weeks into a fourteen week excursion. We both love to travel but there are limits. We seem to have arrived at a happy medium where we hit the road for six or seven weeks and return home before we get tired of it.
"What are the best and worst things about house sitting?"
For me, the best thing is the constant movement. My short attention span is stimulated by the near constant change. I love exploring new places, eating different foods, just generally wandering where we please. We love almost all the pets we've cared for and would happily return to see them again. Many of the homeowners we've met could become friends if we were closer. We've lived in some gorgeous houses and in some stunning locations. All free.
The worst things? Being away from our family and everyone we know for weeks at a time. We miss a lot at home and it takes time to catch up every time we return. Another not so good thing is not having a home to come back to. Jen's been great, keeping a room where we can crash when we get back to Newmarket, but it's not home. Oh, and Baltimore.
"How long will you continue to do it?"
This one's up in the air. Right now we're enjoying it but we're running out of North America. We'd like to do more overseas sits but transportation becomes an issue. If we're staying at a property outside a major town we'll need a car and it can get pretty expensive renting cars for many weeks at a time. I keep my eye out for sits where the owners will let us use a car, like in Cyprus, and I expect that's the kind of thing we'll take advantage of more in the future. That means we'll likely keep doing this for another year and re-assess it next spring.
"Where are you going next?"
We promised our grandkids we would spend the summer at home, while they're off school, so we're heading off to Nova Scotia on Friday 😂. We'll be back by July 1, relax. We'll be house sitting around the Toronto area until mid-August and all the properties have swimming pools so we'll see lots of the kids. After that, our plans are TBD.
I think that likely answers most of your questions. For those of you who have followed us since Day One, thanks for your interest and indulgence. I hope you've enjoyed the ride and that I provide the odd chuckle to brighten your day. The rest of you who don't follow regularly, get with it gang! You think we do this for ourselves? Well, ok, we do.
As always, stay tuned.
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thanks Mike for the up date, always enjoy your blog.
ReplyDeleteYvonne Vandergugten