There was an interesting bit on NPR about the increased need for house sitters. These are people who stay in your house and look after your house/gardens/pets while you are away. This is not a house swap. No money changes hands as it is mutually beneficial.
being newly retired the idea of being a house sitter in another part of the world is intriguing.
Has anyone done this?
How and where did you find the opportunity?
robertjames7022 at aol.com

House sitting around here (western New England) is big business. Seems everyone wants some one to stay in their house and care for their pets, gardens, etc when they go on vacation. My daughter did it the whole time she was in college and made a lot of money. In her case she was quite well paid most of the time. It varried depending on type of pets (dogs require more care so those people pay better), etc. She often made $100-200 a week. I don't know about house sitting in Europe, but in this country if you went to college campuses you'd find postings for people both looking for and offering the service.

isabel - trying the posting boards at universities is an excellent idea. Checking with my alumni associations might work too.
There appear to be a lot of house sitting opportunities in Australia and New Zealand offered on the internet but maybe that is the enterprising Aussies trying to make a buck. Maybe some of the posters from down under would know.

I had an internet acquaintance come down here & house/pet sit for me for 3 weeks. She brought her son & husband & had a great time. The dogs were happy, too. I didn't pay her, though I did provide a rental car for them.

How do you feel about Pittsburgh?

I think this might be a great thing to try to do through Fodors. So many of us need house/pet sitters and it would be great if we could "trade" between each other. Think about it...

My good friend Kim did this for many years, and had regular customers. It helped that she had been a vet tech for 4 years, so knew lots about pet care. She made a couple hundred a month - but now she's a nurse, her hours are too irregular, and she travels. She's near San Francisco now if anyone out there needs one

Oh, and I forgot to mention winter...

tuscan - does it come with season tickets to the Penguins and a chance to meet Sydney? Actually we wouldn't be adverse to a house-sit in the States, I just never envisioned it being Pittsburgh.
Carrybean - I've seen the view from your place - drop me an email next time!!
(When do the Aussies and the Kiwis hit the board? UK or Europe would be super)

We clipped and saved a French press article on this. Now, can I find the article?

Robjame, the problem is I usually only go away in June. June's very nice in the Caribbean but most want to be here in February if they're turning into popsicles in the frozen North.

Dave in Paris - Can you remember enough of the article to give us the gist of it?

This might be of interest.

http://www.housesitworld.com.au/readme.htm

Last year there were a couple of interesting articles in the AARP magazine about housesitting.

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/travel/freeloaders.html

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/travel/freeloader_ask.html

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/travel/f..._freebies.html (includes links to several websites)

Our family spent a month last summer housesitting for friends in Provence. We loved it, and have our fingers crossed they will need us again this summer. You can read our take on housesitting in our blog here: http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/wood/archives/001031.html

I have thought that we might pursue other summer housesitting opportunities in the future. If you are flexible and don't mind doing a little work, it's a great way to experience a different place... especially the opportunity to "live" there.

Kathy

Kathy - That was a fascinating blog about your own experiences. Thank you so much. You did a fine job of presenting the pros and the cons of the assignment.
The AARP articles are excellent and I will keep them for reference as well as checking out the links. It seems like a very interesting prospect.

There is a very active company out of Australia:
http://www.happyhousesitters.com.au/
If you register your email, they will send you new assignments (1-3 a day). You cannot reply to them until you have registered but it is interesting to see the number and scope of the ads for house sitters. It seems to be very popular in that part of the world.

As you can tell from my name, I am a nomad and find that housesitting offers me the most flexibility while getting to know an area in depth. For me, the best site has been www.caretaker.org or www.housesit.org

The NPR bit on housesitting is online at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=6923808

I agree with earthnomad, since I have been using www.caretaker.org for years, and have taken 7 great housesitting assignments from this site!

I would happily house sit and take care of doggies - no cats though - my face swells up!

My husband and I are very boring travellers - we call it granny tourism. We like just hanging out, eating and drinking, sleeping - no nightlife. I think we are quite active for most of the year so for holidays we just like spending quiet time together - and a little grass mowing would be exercise for us.