To ask about trustedhousesitters

[Howlongdoesittake]

Anyone used them, are they reliable? Heard a few horror stories, am I better off paying a house/pet sitting company? Even though it will cost as much as my holiday?

We used them once about 10 years ago. She was perfect and we stayed in touch, but tbh I'm still not sure if we were just really lucky! I'm also not sure if I'd be brave enough to do it again with someone different.

We've used TH a few times in the past and it's been great. In fact we are going away next week and we have a TH family coming to stay, and we've also arrange a sit at Christmas. For us it makes a lot of sense as we have dogs, hens and a cat and arranging different people to come in and look after the various animals is cumbersome and expensive, whereas with TH we just have one family to deal with. They get a lovely holiday and we get peace of mind, the dogs in particular get to stay in their own home and it doesn't cost us a bomb to arrange. I always review the sitters carefully and have a zoom call to chat before we agree to go ahead and plenty of communication in the run up. If helps me to assess them and vice versa as it has to work both ways.

We are not precious about things here which I think helps. We are lucky enough to live in a pretty property in a beautiful location and we already do a lot of home exchanges so we are used to having people staying in our home. We know the value of what we have to offer people and we also greatly appreciate what they can do for us.

You should think about your home insurance. The chances are that nothing will happen, in many ways it's like having friends staying in your house while you're away - would you choose to extend your home insurance to cover that? Probably not but I'm a cautious soul so we do have special cover in place, a bit like adding an extra driver to our car insurance on a temporary basis if necessary.

At the end of the day with TH and indeed home exchanges no money is changing hands. I think things always change once they are monetised but if people are effectively just getting a free holiday out of it and you have checked that they are competent and have the necessary experience then it should work well.

Good luck.