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We have discovered House and pet sitting and, rather unexpectedly, have digressed in our Airbnb travels!

Here is a quick update to anyone who has not followed our story from the beginning.

We left Manchester in September 2020. After many years as Airbnb hosts, we thought we would try to see how possible it is to live full-time in Airbnb accommodation. So far it has worked out great and the month we spent in Edinburgh in May was our 11th consecutive stay in Airbnb accommodation.

For this month (June 2021) however, things have taken an unexpected turn…

Our nephew, George, and his fiancee, Amy are getting married in July so we started to look in advance for accommodation near to the wedding venue, Colshaw Hall in Cheshire. When we searched the Airbnb listings we were struggling to find anything suitable nearby.

House and Pet sitting

I remembered when I first mentioned our travel plans last year to friends we were asked if we had considered house and pet sitting? At the time we were totally focused on Airbnb so did not look into it. However, with the lack of suitable Airbnb accommodation in the vicinity of the wedding venue, now seemed a good time to take a closer look. We did some quick research on the internet and came across the website trustedhousesitters.com

How it works

TrustedHousesitters is very similar to Airbnb except that no cash changes hands and there is normally at least one pet that the guest (sitter) agrees to care for during their stay.

Sitters and homeowners pay an annual joining fee. Then homeowners going away advertise on the site that they are looking for a housesitter ( which almost always includes the care of a pet ). Sitters can search through the available ‘vacancies’ and apply for the sits they would be interested to do. No cash changes hands, It is considered a straight swap. The Homeowner saves on kennel/cattery fees plus gets the added security that their home is not standing empty for long periods. The sitter gets free accommodation. Win-win

Is it for us?

There are thousands of advertised House and pet sitting opportunities available all over the world. Some sitters are similar to us, nomadic travellers with no fixed abode. They constantly move around sit to sit. Others only sit locally to where they live, usually for a day or two at a time. This is ideal for anyone that loves animals but, for whatever reason, is not able to have a pet of their own. Other sitters take on one or two 7 – 14 day sits a year as a holiday.

As long as you are flexible with your time and are ok accepting the responsibility of caring for someone else’s home and pet then it can be a really cost-effective way to visit places just about anywhere in the world. Sits range from one night to a few months so there is a House and pet sitting opportunity that would be of interest to everyone.

If you are interested to take a look yourself, either as a homeowner or as a sitter, and decide to join, feel free to use our referral code which gives you 25% off your first-year joining fee.

https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF36

But don’t tell everyone – we don’t want too much competition!

Where was I?

– Oh yes, so we were searching for a house and pet sitting opportunity near to the upcoming wedding venue…

We took a look through the available sits on the TrustedHousesitters site and, unbelievably, there was a family looking for someone to take care of their dog and home that lived just a few miles from the wedding venue – and they said they were happy to let the sitters borrow their car! – It could not have been any better for us so we applied and were accepted. It was such a surprise to be accepted on our first application. This really boosted our interest and I quickly found myself addicted to checking what other sits were available to apply for.

THE GOOD

We were accepted for our very first housesit. It was for the whole month of June. The Homeowner, Michael, was going away for a solo hike and needed someone to look after his home and Maine coon cat, ‘Mistletoe’ whilst he was away.

So with mixed emotions of nervousness and excitement, we left Edinburgh and headed to Milton Keynes central. From here, Michael was kindly waiting for us to give us a lift to his home in the small market town of Towcester (pronounced toaster).

Upon arrival, Michael showed us around his beautiful three-story townhouse and then introduced us to the even-more-beautiful ‘Mistletoe’ the cat. Michael explained that she was a surprise Christmas gift to him hence her festive name

As an introduction to house and pet sitting this experience could not have been better. Our home for the month was really nice. Clean, comfortable, and spacious. It had a small courtyard which allowed us to enjoy the nice weather and all mod cons were at our disposal enabling us to make the most of our stay.

Towcester

The town of Towcester is a Roman, market town. Its claim to fame is that it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the country. It was originally the Roman town of Lactodorum.

The town is located in West Northamptonshire and is only a 20-minute drive to Milton Keynes train station. From here you can be in central London in 30 minutes so an easy commute and a very popular place to live for city workers.

Towcester is a quiet town surrounded by countryside. We were never more than a few minutes away from beautiful scenic places to walk or run.

Nowadays Towcester is best known for its horse racing track and for the fact that it is very near to the Silverstone car racing track.

One more thing I thought was very forward-thinking in Towcester and well worth a mention. All parking in the town is completely free 24/7 365 days a year! I don’t know if it is because we have lived so long in a big city but I was amazed to see this. Also, it was great to see that the high street was thriving. Every single shop unit was filled and there were always lots of shoppers in the street. There has to be a connection to the free parking and how healthy the town looked, I wish more councils would follow this strategy. It pains me to see the state of most high streets in the UK with their boarded-up shops and general run-down appearance. It seemed to me that Towcester is proof that it really does not have to be this way!

Our first sit!

The cat in our care, Mistletoe, was great company. In all honesty, I have always been a little nervous around cats. In my mind, they were always ready to pounce and dig their claws in as soon as your back was turned! This was definitely not the case with Mistletoe. She was adorable, really affectionate, good fun to be around, and extremely comical in her antics. She slept most of the day then at night went out for a couple of hours. Reappearing at any time to suit her and plonk herself on the nearest knee she could find.

The downside? Mistletoe did bring a couple of mice home as ‘gifts’ during our stay. This was a bit cringy but that, I’m afraid, is what cats do. We will have to get used to it if we intend to continue with our new house and pet sitting adventures.

THE SAD

Unfortunately, as with most things in life things don’t always go to plan.

The original petsitting booking that we had taken as it was close to the wedding venue was cancelled. The owner had been waiting for an appointment for surgery for a long time and was informed that a date had become available when they were due to be away. Obviously, we could not blame them. I am sure they were gutted at having to cancel their holiday. However, we were also disappointed. It now meant that we still needed somewhere to stay for the period of the wedding.

I scoured the housesitting adverts again and spotted another housesit advertised for dates over the wedding period. This time it was in Birmingham and included caring for a cat named ‘Precious’. This was not as convenient for us as the original housesit in Cheshire but we were not far from the train station so we thought was a good second-best option. We applied and once again were accepted. The owner explained to us that Precious was very old but still in good health so it should be a very easy sit.

Unfortunately, this also turned out not to be. The housesitting Gods seemed to have turned against us! Sadly, a few days before we were due to travel to the house Precious sadly passed away. She died simply of old age. Just unexpectedly and suddenly went peacefully in her sleep.

Another Airbnb

For us, this now meant that we had nowhere to live for a week but as we already had our train tickets for Birmingham booked we decided to go anyway and to book ourselves an Airbnb.

We have friends in Birmingham, Surya and Iulia, that we know as fellow hosts through Airbnb networking. I called them to ask if they had any accommodation available and they very kindly did us a great week deal on one of their properties.

With just a 15-minute walk from Birmingham New Street Station, Their two-bed apartment in central Birmingham was ideal for our stay. It was spotlessly clean and had excellent WIFI which is a top priority for us. The apartment was fully equipped whether you are staying for a weekend or a longer period. We highly recommend this property as your accommodation choice for your next visit to Birmingham.

THE UGLY

After we left Towcester and before we travelled to Birmingham we had a few days to spare. I checked the housesitting website and spotted a four-night stay in London looking after two cats. As this was only a short train ride away it seemed an ideal location to spend the four nights we had available before heading to Birmingham.

Our journey there was fine and we arrived as arranged. On entering the apartment we were surprised to see that it did not seem to have been prepared for our arrival and was really untidy.

The homeowner was eager to leave so introduced us to her pets, had a quick chat, and left us to it.

Once they had left and we were able to take a proper look around the apartment we were really shocked by the state of the place. The kitchen area was filthy. Fridge, oven, microwave worksurfaces all dirty with the residue of food and God-knows-what-else everywhere you could see. The bedroom door had been left open. This meant that the cats had been sleeping on the bed leaving hair everywhere. The whole place was desperately in need of a deep clean.

Time to roll up our sleeves!

Thankfully, there was plenty of cleaning products under the sink so there was only one thing for it. We rolled up our sleeves and got scrubbing. It really was the only option we had. We were only staying for four nights but had we not cleaned the place we would not have been able to stay.

Six hours later the place looked different again. All the bedding was washed and dried. The kitchen was cleaned and all floors mopped and hoovered. It did get me wondering whether this was a clever scam the homeowner had? Book a house sit every three or four weeks knowing the sitters would highly likely feel the need to clean your apartment whilst they were there!

There is a review system with Trusted housesitters but, unfortunately, it has a flaw. As soon as the sitter or homeowner leaves a review then that review is published on the site. This means that if I leave the homeowner a bad review, they can read it and leave us a bad review in retaliation. They really need a system similar to Airbnb where no review is published on the site until both are submitted to avoid this tit-for-tat review probability.

The good news from the sit was that the pets were lovely. It is a learning curve and we have since found out that it’s common for housesitters to request a video tour of the property before confirming to stay. I wish we had known that beforehand!

What next?

The house and pet sitting have been a real surprise for us as the idea snowballed so quickly. From thinking about it as a possibility in May here we are at the end of June. Two Housesits already under our belt and a couple more are already confirmed for July! We are not letting our bad experience put us off and intend to do a few more housesits before deciding whether it is something that we want to do regularly or not. The positive is that it saves us a lot of money on accommodation. The negative is the responsibility that comes with it. Time will tell…

So that’s it for this month. For now, we are comfortable in our Airbnb in Birmingham. We managed to get to see Alex and Dean, good friends of ours that we shamefully have not seen for five years. ( Lovely to see you again guys! ) and are looking forward to the wedding at the weekend. It has been a long time since we have seen all our family together.

Then, on Monday, we are booked to do another housesit, caring for two cats, Floyd and Diggory, in Chiswick, London. I will let you know how we get on next time. We are hoping it is going to be a second positive experience to add to our list. Wish us luck!