We’ve gotten to travel a lot over the past year, and we know that makes us pretty lucky ducks. We’re vaccinated, we have flexible schedules, we don’t have to spend everyday worrying about money, and we don’t have commitments that tie us to a physical location. That gives us more privilege and opportunity than a lot of people, and we’re grateful for it.
But while we may be pretty footloose and fancy-free, we’re not totally without responsibilities. For starters, we have a house, and while it’s small, it comes with the usual house maintenance things: lawn care in the summer, snow shoveling in the winter, and keeping at bay the forces of entropy and decay pretty much all the time. More important, though, are the demands of the creatures that share the house with us. This menagerie includes Laura’s congregation of potted plants and our two domesticated carnivores, Luna and Kepler.
Cats are supposed to be a little less maintenance than most other pets, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy. Our little fuzzballs don’t have complicated medication rituals, but old man Kepler has some special diet needs – not to mention an unusually strong desire for lots of human cuddles. Luna is a more typically aloof cat, but even she wants tummy scratches on the regular. Our kind-hearted neighbor Larry helps us keep them fed and cuddled when we need to be away for a day or two, but we need a different solution for long road trips and international vacations. Cats need more socialization than many people expect, and Kepler’s kidney and pancreas issues are better treated if someone’s around him all day to feed him lots of small, regular meals.
So when we started thinking about traveling again in early 2021, I looked around for pet-sitter options. I quickly discovered two things:
- We live in relatively rural area, and our options for housesitting services are pretty limited.
- The few available services are expensive. Don’t get me wrong – the fees aren’t unreasonable for the time and effort someone would expend taking care of our cats and houseplants – but the costs quickly add up. A four or five-week trip would have cost us more than a thousand dollars.
But after a few internet searches I stumbled across a platform called TrustedHousesitters. The model is fairly simple: People like us who need housesitting services can connect with people who want to travel. In exchange for living in your place while you’re away, they’ll take care of your house, pets, and plants. The transaction between the homeowner and petsitter is free, though the TrustedHousesitters platform itself charges an fairly modest annual membership fee to create a profile. In addition to getting access to a pretty intuitive profile and messaging system, some membership levels provide extra services like insurance for your stuff while you’re away, free video calls to veterinarians, and airport lounge passes.
We’ve used the site to book housesitters four times over the past year, and it’s been a great experience every time. Our sitters have been a little all over the spectrum: singles and couples, retirees and remote workers in their 20s, experienced housesitters and people brand new to the platform. Our first petsitting couple sent us irregular updates because they didn’t want to bother us, but the people watching our place right now share daily cat updates and photos in the TrustedHousesitter app. The first three times we traveled we just posted our dates and saw a bunch of applications roll in. We didn’t have quite as much interest for our most recent dates – partly because we only posted them a few weeks ahead of time – so we browsed through public profiles and sent invites to likely sitters until we found someone with availability.
Overall, it’s been pretty ideal. Not everyone likes the idea of someone else living in their space, but for us, it’s a great feeling knowing there’s someone there to cuddle and feed our cats on a daily basis and handle both the regular maintenance stuff – snow shoveling, lawn mowing, mail collection – and emergencies if they come up. (So far the biggest crisis was a downspout that blew off in a thunderstorm. Hardly a disaster, but it was nice that someone was home to retrieve it and keep it from blowing down the street.)
And it’s been incredibly affordable. The annual TrustedHousesitter membership fee is the only cost. Plans range between $129 and $319 per year, depending on the features you want. We opted for a mid-range $229 plan, which works out to be about $19 a month, or about $15 for every week we’ve had a housesitter during our first year. I don’t think there’s a more affordable option out there for regular travelers. Even if you only take one trip a year, it’s still likely less expensive than hiring a service.
If you’re interested in checking it out, you can use our referral link to get 25% off the regular prices. We also get a couple of extra months tacked on to our membership if you sign up, so it’s a nice win-win.
Thither & Yon 