House & Pet Sitting Jobs

A house sitting job can be a great way to find a short term holiday home. Usually a person that owns a home is going away and they would like someone to care for the house, garden and possibly pets.

The length of the house sitting job varies greatly based on the needs of the owner. It can be as short as a weekend or several months. It is generally best not to have too many expectations about the house sitting job, but rather take what you can find.

The term job is a bit of a misnomer, as you generally won’t get paid, but instead are offered free accommodation and use of the house and property. Home owners can set rules and guidelines that must be followed if you are going to accept the job.

How to Find a House & Pet Sitting Job

In locating a house sitting job, the internet is basically your best friend and the key starting point. Searching in Google, or any other search engine, for the phrase ‘house sitting jobs’ will uncover a network of listing sites where you can either apply to sit a listed home or list your own home.

Many of these sites run on a subscription basis, in that you need to pay to apply to be a house sitter. Usually the best way to combat this is to use the site to search for a few places that fit the dates you would like to find a house sitting job. When you have collected about ten or so, join the networking site, and pay the first month – if you are really lucky the site will offer a free trial – and then apply to as many jobs as possible to secure your house sitting job. 

Once you find the house sitting job you need, you can cancel your subscription. However often the subscription amounts are not that high, and when you consider that you are gaining free accommodation they are in fact quite reasonable. 

If the cost of subscription is important to you, then ideally you need to look through the various sites and weigh up the subscription costs against the amount of listings they have. 

What to Look for in a House & Pet Sitting Job

If you are not a hundred percent sure what you are after in a house sitting job, take your time to go through the listings. Look for what the owner says in their ad, as sometimes the property may not be worth your time. Think about what you will be doing at the location, will you have time to look after the pets, or the garden?

Take special note of how the ad listing has been written, do you feel that your own agenda and desires is in parallel to the owner? Remember after you stay in their property often they will be given the chance to rate you as a sitter and this rating may affect your ability to secure future house sitting jobs. Basically, you don’t want to get stuck house sitting for a person whose expectations are well beyond reality.