the Cost of House Sitters

The $150 quoted above is for a college aged male (son of a friend) to use our home as his own personal home for a week. Our rural setting does not allow for a neighbor to attentively watch our home, so the $150 was a great investment for our peace of mind. Our kitchen, pantry and freezer were fully stocked already, and nobody offers pizza delivery service out here, so we didn't pay him extra for meals, he was free to consume ours.

This arrangement worked out fine. We didn't ask for our house sitter to keep things spotless, we simply asked him to pick up after himself. For the most part, he did. Nothing was destroyed while we were gone, and the casual passerby would not have noticed that my home wasn't being occupied by the homeowners as the mail and newspaper were picked up on a daily basis. We don't have a land line phone, just a cell phone, so nobody knew that we weren't home to answer our calls. This was a great choice for us!

Make sure you can trust whomever you ask to house sit for you. The guy we chose had been well known by our family for years, ever since he was a kid. If that's not a possible situation for you, contact your local college and inquire. They will know of many young people that are trustworthy, dependable, and needing some extra money. Be sure to put your rules in writing. In our case we offered everything in our home to our sitter except our personal vehicles. We did leave a hidden spare keyring to our vehicles, but we had decided ahead of time it was only in case of absolute emergency that we would even tell our sitter. Make sure your sitter knows exactly what is expected and, if things turn out well, you have a reliable source to use next time you must leave home.