House sitting/swopsy?

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Irish-Only

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Having moved some time ago and left behind (and too far away now) the most amazing and trustworthy house/horse/dog sitter I have to say I'm struggling to find a good person. The last one was for just 3 days and when we got home I 3/4 filled the barrow with poo from just 3 stables before I brought the horses in for the evening, the stables were just a mess and the poo was sat on top, clearly visible. And judging by the state of the kitchen the dogs had been left alone for long periods. Gone are any thoughts of using this one if we want to take a trip abroad to visit relatives, or any other holiday for that matter. I've not found anything totally convincing on trusted house sitters that includes good experienced horsey people and am loathe to sign up if this is the case, unless anyone knows better?

Can we set up a H&H Forum members house sitting database? Please?
 
Irish-Only said:
Having moved some time ago and left behind (and too far away now) the most amazing and trustworthy house/horse/dog sitter I have to say I'm struggling to find a good person. The last one was for just 3 days and when we got home I 3/4 filled the barrow with poo from just 3 stables before I brought the horses in for the evening, the stables were just a mess and the poo was sat on top, clearly visible. And judging by the state of the kitchen the dogs had been left alone for long periods. Gone are any thoughts of using this one if we want to take a trip abroad to visit relatives, or any other holiday for that matter. I've not found anything totally convincing on trusted house sitters that includes good experienced horsey people and am loathe to sign up if this is the case, unless anyone knows better?

Can we set up a H&H Forum members house sitting database? Please?
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Great idea! I’d love to look after horses but my Lurcher would have to be invited too.
 
We tried trusted house sitters for one night, we thought we'd done research and met the person first and talked everything through

It was a disaster - never again. A long tail of questions / panic that ruined the night away as we were constantly interrupted with calls and ended up rushing back.

I am sure there are the odd good egg on there, but I personally prefer to pay someone then I can be specific about what I want and how I want it done - without feeling guilty.
 
A friend of mine is a ‘trusted house sitter’ she works quite hard when she’s at people’s homes. She’s one of the few!
 
Polos Mum said:
We tried trusted house sitters for one night, we thought we'd done research and met the person first and talked everything through

It was a disaster - never again. A long tail of questions / panic that ruined the night away as we were constantly interrupted with calls and ended up rushing back.

I am sure there are the odd good egg on there, but I personally prefer to pay someone then I can be specific about what I want and how I want it done - without feeling guilty.
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I was paying the last one, left my usual typed out instructions etc and it was hopeless. But interesting that your experience with trusted house sitters was a fail.
 
I guess if you pay someone for a service and they don't do it - you have the right to be disappointed.

Hopefully there are other freelancers in the area worth a try, although people willing to stay over are so niche they get booked up sooooo quickly!
We book our May half term holiday more than a year in advance.

The house sitters is weird because they are on holiday / travelling for work or family or some other reason and as they are "doing you a favour" it's much less clear who has to accommodate who.
 
We've had four different animal nurses as house sitters over the years. We just put the word out at the nearest vets' that we are paying!
They tend to be young, poor and used to handling other people's animals.

One of them must have had the mother & father of all parties but she cleaned up well (that was how we first noticed- house was cleaner than we left it but she'd missed a big vomit in the downstairs loo 🤣 )
One became a friend and still visits 20 years later although she has 3 kids now & can't house sit.
 
A good house sitter/animal sitter is hard to find! We use a house sitter who is brilliant.We are down sizing and moving next year and have sorted out that they are happy to travel and sit where we are relocating to.,( it's about 90 miles from where we are currently) and she will charge a mileage fee as currently only 25 miles away.
The only problem is that she gets very very booked up so you need to book miles in advance .
She knows the dates I usually have and will ring me if someone else asks for that slot .We always have a holiday in the sun in January and she rang me in September to ask if I wanted January 2026! as someone had asked if she was free!! Do I have booked 1 year and 4 months in advance!!!!
The big agencies are hugely expensive a friend had a quote for one cat and 6 small ponies living out of £200 per day !
 
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Glitter's fun said:
We've had four different animal nurses as house sitters over the years. We just put the word out at the nearest vets' that we are paying!
They tend to be young, poor and used to handling other people's animals.

One of them must have had the mother & father of all parties but she cleaned up well (that was how we first noticed- house was cleaner than we left it but she'd missed a big vomit in the downstairs loo 🤣 )
One became a friend and still visits 20 years later although she has 3 kids now & can't house sit.
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We used a lady from the local livery yard - who was great - needed more £ and could easily go to work from our house and pop back at lunchtime to let dogs out.
Sadly she then got married and had kids so no longer wants to stay away

It's a job for a narrow group of people who don't have commitments at home so I guess why they are few and far between.
 
I finish uni in May and plan to go travelling. I'm now thinking house sitting/freelancing might be a way to offset some of the costs and see different non touristy places. I love travelling but hate being surrounded by hordes of tourists.I prefer places tourists don't go and seeing real life stuff rather than attractions.

I wouldn't go anywhere I couldn't take my own dogs, and I'd want to bring my little caravan that I currently live in. My dogs are super easy going and it would be no issue to keep them separate.Theyve lived everywhere from hotel rooms, narrow boats, caravans and just get on with it so long as they can sleep 20 hours a day under the duvet 😂 I'm middle aged, BHS qualified, tee total, tons of experience with poultry, sheep, dogs etc, so I'm sure I could be off use to people.

I'm going to do some googling later see if it might be feasible. As of yet all I know is I'm heading off on an adventure, possibly europe, but no set plans on places, so this is definitely worth looking into it!
 
Polos Mum said:
It's a job for a narrow group of people who don't have commitments at home so I guess why they are few and far between.
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In the past I've used older responsible teenage/young adult horse owners I've known through the farm or the hunt to come and house sit. Admittedly I've only had a house sitter for one dog but I know these girls have also done house-sitting for people with horses, sheep, goats, chickens etc. I've known the girls and I've known their parents and never had any problems.
 
2nd the vet nurse recommendation. We’ve used one of the nurses from the clinic, as she has intermittently done house sitting. We pay double her normal rate (so $50/day) as it’s more work and she takes annual leave and stays with everyone as I don’t really like them left. Super lucky to have that I think! We wouldn’t be able to have a holiday if we didn’t have her as 7 dogs , 2 horses is not a small amount of work.
 
I'm looking for a house/cat/possibly dog sitter for when I'm on honeymoon next year and I'm dreading it! I had thought of using trusted house sitters or other such sites but if we had some kind of database of reliable people I'd definitely use it!
 
My parents are on Trusted House Sitters and work hard looking after all animals and are in high demand and regularly asked back by people. I think you have to very carefully read the reviews of people applying to sit and ask questions about experience.

They vet sits they apply for now after some bad experiences (e.g. filthy hoarder house, dangerous dogs)

They are doing it as a way to see explore/different parts of the UK.
 
We are quite lucky oh's daughter will live at ours and look after dogs as she works near us, I then just pay my friend to do the horses and she will let dogs out and feed if need be well.

His parents will also stay at ours and I have a few friends that would do it as well.
 
Definitely need a pinned post for this so people can add their "wanted" posts. I do some house sitting but it's quite rare as in order to accommodate it I need to take holiday from my pub job and obviously there's a limited amount of that that I can do and I need some for actual holidays too, also can't be too far away as still need to do my horses and walk others dogs so it is very limited.
 
slimjim86 said:
Definitely need a pinned post for this so people can add their "wanted" posts. I do some house sitting but it's quite rare as in order to accommodate it I need to take holiday from my pub job and obviously there's a limited amount of that that I can do and I need some for actual holidays too, also can't be too far away as still need to do my horses and walk others dogs so it is very limited.
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How do you pin it?
 
I am lucky at the moment I have the most reliable house sitter in the world, who brings their horse and they all have a holiday! However, before that, I split the tasks, so I would have a house sitter who had base responsibility and then someone who come in daily to walk the dogs/feed the horses then a whole list of people who could be rung if there were problems. Expensive and organisationally difficult, but it did mean I could enjoy my holiday knowing there were layers of people to look after everything!!

So I think what I am saying is maybe a worker/student who stays overnight and does the last and first tasks, then while they are at work another who does the mucking out/dog walking?
 
It’s not easy to find someone, we had a great local girl who wouldn’t stay the night as she only lived a mile away, then she went and for a proper job.

We only have dogs here now and they can all go to kennels but it would be great to keep them at home instead.
 
My dog sitter is a dog groomer so Meg gets left while she works but it does work out ok mostly. I just hate asking cos she’s a friend and will only accept a small fee. Also she’s super busy!
 
Most of my horsey friends either ask a 20-something livery on their yard (who are often saving for a house deposit so happy to help), or...yes, a vet nurse.
 
I no longer have a dog so I use borrowmydoggy.com to get my doggy fix. I have regular dogs who come to me every week while their owners are at work and they often stay if the owners are on holiday. I've got a cockerpoo coming tomorrow for five days. I don't get paid and the owner pays a minimal amount to register on their site.
 
canteron said:
I am lucky at the moment I have the most reliable house sitter in the world, who brings their horse and they all have a holiday! However, before that, I split the tasks, so I would have a house sitter who had base responsibility and then someone who come in daily to walk the dogs/feed the horses then a whole list of people who could be rung if there were problems. Expensive and organisationally difficult, but it did mean I could enjoy my holiday knowing there were layers of people to look after everything!!

So I think what I am saying is maybe a worker/student who stays overnight and does the last and first tasks, then while they are at work another who does the mucking out/dog walking?
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Thanks, that sounds a good idea too.
 
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