June 10, 2013

  • Housesitting and petsitting

    Right now, I'm sitting in a house with a very cute boxer and two skittish cats housesitting for a friend of my mom's.  I'll be here for about two weeks and I'm considering it a mini vacation although I'm only about 20 minutes from where I live.  Normally, Alpo joins me when I housesit/petsit, but since the cats were rescue cats, they wouldn't come into the house when Alpo was here and Alpo was being a bully to the boxer and being a general pain in the neck so I took him home.

    Here is a picture of two of the three charges during the first afternoon:

    I'm starting to think that this might be a great way to travel and I have done some internet research and have found some interesting sites for housesitters.  The two organizations I have found that seem trustworthy are Trustedhousesitters.com  and Luxuryhousesitting.com where they match housesitters with people who need someone to housesit and/or petsit.  There are opportunities around the world and it looks like a fun way to learn an area since you would be living in a house and taking care of pets.  Although you have responsibilities while there, it saves a lot on hotels.  The housesitters do have to pay a fee to get the contact information and set up a profile, but it isn't all that much considering how much one can potentially save on hotels.  Some of the housesitting jobs are a weekend and some are for as long as a year--seems a lot are from two to six weeks.  The jobs are all over the world.  I haven't seen any yet for Finland, but did see a few postings for housesitting in Sweden so this will grow as people learn about the site.  I think I will start doing this with opportunities in the USA and then eventually go abroad as I get older and have more freedom.  This is definitely something I want to do during retirement!  If anyone has worked with either of these organizations, I would love to hear from you!

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