Each sit is different and there is plenty to choose from. Read our tips and tricks to find the best match for you to start your house sitting journey!
When choosing a sit (especially when you don’t have many reviews) you need to find a balance between your preferences and your odds of being accepted by the owner. Since your preferences are yours, we’ll only recommend being humble when judging your abilities and enthusiasm. Don’t go for a huge beautiful home with many pets if you live in an easy-to-care-for home. Be careful when choosing pets that you never lived with (if you only lived with outdoor pets, staying with indoor cats/dogs might be more work than you expect!) You don’t want to feel overwhelmed by chores and responsibilities.
When it comes to the likeliness of being chosen by the owners there are two criteria to consider when applying for a sit:
- competitiveness - some sits just attract more people, it might be for a variety of reasons some of them even
dependent.
- duration - sits for one night are not worth it for everyone (and also might imply potentially difficult conditions for coordination such as medicine for the pet at an exact time). On the other hand, not everyone wants to settle for the whole summer in one place.
- location - some locations attract more people, homes in centres of beautiful cities or villas near beaches. Opposite to that some places require you to have a car (renting a car might be completely fine or a deal-breaker, it depends on your budget) or are far away from airports and thus the travel can take too long.
- responsibilities - some pets (or gardens) require quite a lot of attention. Some owners also want their house to be cleaned thoroughly and often. Not every sit allows all the plans or leisure time most sitters prefer. To give some examples - you might look after a dog that cannot stay alone at any time but also cannot walk for more than a short walk. Or you might be required to vacuum the whole home twice a day. Or a pet needs medication every 6 hours. Or the pet is outside many sitters’ comfort zone (big dogs, farm animals, spiders).
- Overall be sure to check the whole listing. It might explain why a beautiful house on a beach has zero applicants.
- owner preference - some owners restrict their listing to only some sitters. But there is also an unwritten set preference.
- restriction - it is a bit rare but we encountered a variety of restrictions. From wanting only a single person (not a couple or a family), restricting a gender (an animal can be traumatized) or some lifestyle preference - non-smokers or more uncommon like owners living a vegan lifestyle and not allowing any animal product into their house.
- preferences - one preference that had pretty much all owners we talked to so far is your physical proximity. The ideal means of transport is for example a short car drive within one region/country. Some owners seemed calmer when we offered plan B in case the original transportation plan fails (for example direct bus that you can use if your flight gets cancelled). This sort of unease of owners might wind down with the receding pandemic.
Once you choose some sits to apply for, be sure to write a nice message.
