We are so lucky to have found a fabulous way to link up with people who are happy to come and stay in our house and take care of Maggie and Geordie while we take trips. We connected with them through a website, Housecarers.com, where we were able to post an ad about our house and our dogs to find house sitters who wanted to come to Vancouver Island. It cost us nothing to post the ad and the house sitters will take care of our dogs for free. In exchange they get to stay in our house and use our car to explore this part of the world. It's a win-win situation.
Peter and Deb are from Australia and are dedicated travellers and dog lovers. They rented out their house in Perth and have been house sitting their way around the world for almost three years. They tell us that there are several house sitting websites that they use to connect with homeowners all over the world who are looking for reliable people to come and mind their houses.
They responded to our ad on the housecarers website because the dates were perfect for them. They were house sitting in the Yukon until early February and then were going to Mayne Island (just a short ferry ride away from here) for five weeks at the the end February. We e-mailed them and talked with them on Skype and checked their excellent references so we felt comfortable in making the arrangements.
Of course it's a bit of an act of faith to invite people you haven't actually met to come and stay in your house. But through the magic of Skype where we were able to have some in-depth conversations about our dogs and their needs and about their background we felt comfortable with it. We picked them up at the airport when they flew in from the Yukon, put them up in our spare room and spent the next morning going out and about with the dogs. By the time we left that afternoon we were confident that they would be able to take good care of our pups and our home. And in fact they did. Peter took charge of Geordie and handled him beautifully. They even sent us photos and videos of our dogs while we were away.
To top it all off, they picked us up at the ferry when we arrived back and brought us home to a wonderful meal and a couple of happy dogs and a squeaky clean house. What more could we ask for?Well actually, there's even another bonus. We now have some new friends. Like I said, we visited them at their current housesit on Mayne Island and spent a fun afternoon hiking through a lovely area there. Here are Peter and Deb with Maggie and Geordie on Mayne Island.
The other sites Peter and Deb have mentioned are Trusted Housesitters and Mind My House.
Apparently there are a lot of people out there who are wanting to come and take care of your house and dogs and if you do your homework you can find some wonderful people like Peter and Deb so you can go off on a trip knowing that everything will be taken care of at home.
Good to know...thanks. We have one house sitter (no pets but I like someone in the house) and our next trip is to our regular sitters' home. It's great to have some other resources.
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