housesitting question......is this a fair deal?

February 18, 2006 6:32 AM

I have been asked to housesit/dog sit for 5-6 months of spring and summer. I will have 2 dogs (maybe 3) plus my own dog will be coming with me. It is in a nice neighborhood and the home is extravagant and enormous. There's just one catch.....

The homeowners which are good friends of mine, understand I will be living in this area for the next 6 months, at least until I possibly move in with bf in another state. That is why they have asked that I move into their home to watch their house and pets for the next 5-6 mos. Instead of paying me a daily rate, as they've done in the past ($10/day) I've been given the option of paying lower rent to them than I currently pay for my 2 bedroom apt. I have a roommate and my rent equals out to $275 +$100 utilities.
This is an odd approach to house sitting. Usually the house sitter gets paid for services rendered. Granted the time away is for so long, the money they would be paying me monthly would be going straight to an empty bedroom of the apt. I have left behind.
I thought I could just pay utilities to the homeowners and not rent but the utilities are adjusted to a higher occupancy from 12 mos. prior, so the adjustment would not be correct for a single occupant.
Now I know the current pay of $10/day is very much on the low end given that I am a.)securing their home b.)feeding and loving their three dogs c). maintaining their landscaping. My question is….is this new proposition of paying lower rent still a bad idea? Will I be saving all that much given all the work I will have to do of cleaning up after the dogs, maintaining a palatial residence and committing my weekends to staying in town to watch the dogs?

posted by wondergreen to work & money (16 comments total)

I don't thing you're getting a very nice deal here. If I were the homeowners (and esp. if we were friends), I'd say:
"stay at our home gratis and here's $75 or $100/month in addition".

Pet care is a lot of work (i've done it for 2 dogs in addition to my own pets, with some frequency, so i know)..whether it's your own home or not. in addition you're doing lawncare and house sitting. this is ~all work~ and you should get a sweet deal.
my 2 bits.
posted by The_Auditor at 6:50 AM on February 18, 2006

I'm sorry, this may seem like a dumb question, but this isn't your only job, right? You'd be going to work every day, outside the home, right?

Either way, I think you're getting the short end of the stick. I think The_Auditor's proposal is much more fair. Do a little research - see how much a dog walker and a landscaper get paid for the work you'll be doing. Prorate that against the utilities and residence you'll be getting, and what's leftover is what you should be paid. At any rate, you shouldn't be PAYING to do WORK for them.
posted by MeetMegan at 7:18 AM on February 18, 2006

It's a bad idea from your end. Most pet-sitting gigs either involve getting paid regularly or "Here stay at our awesome house for free for a long time. Oh and by the way please take care of our animals and the house"

I guess you could work it out this way: At your normal rate, you'd be getting $300/month from them. This means that you'd be paying about $75 in utilities to stay at your old place while you dogsat for them. However, this is no ordinary dogsit, you'll be taking care of (I assume) mail, plants, and whatever else is involved in maintaining a big house, so I'd call it, at best, even. Also, if you knew you had a place to live for 5-6 months, you could move out of your place entirely and make money house/petsitting, so them offering to take rent from you really doesn't benefit you at all.

Your friends WILL have to pay most of their utilities -- albeit at a much lower rate -- to be away for 5-6 months. They will also, assumedly, have to pay a mortgage, but this is the downside to home ownership. Renting the place for 5-6 months is risky and they are, in my opinion, taking advantage of your good nature and flexibility here in order to not put themselves into an awkward position.

I'd counteroffer. If you're feeling generous, offer to pay utilities to stay in the house, take care of the dogs, etc. You can either adjust these to a single occupant rate [I'm not entirely sure what that part means, are there fixed utility rates? can't you just pay the actual cost of the utilities] or work out something that seems equitable with your friends.

In short, you would NOT be opting to live in a palace, all other things being equal, so your friends should not offer to rent you a palace. You can give them the offer of renting the place to someone else and still hiring you to do landscaping/dogs/mail. Alternately, you could ask them if you could move into their palace with a roommate to cover costs, and then you could live there for free and your roomate could pay some teeny amount to cover utilities and "rent." I would not take a job that involved paying the people who I was working for, even if there was some reason this seemed like a good idea. If you need a place to live, I'd try to work this out completely separately from their dog/housesitting needs.
posted by jessamyn at 7:18 AM on February 18, 2006

This is ridiculous. You are working for them, or at the very least doing them a huge favor, and you're paying them?

I have NEVER heard of someone paying rent to look after someone's house!
posted by meerkatty at 7:56 AM on February 18, 2006

You are providing them with a service. Taking good care of 2-3 dogs is nothing to sneeze at, and having someone actually stay with the dogs (rather than dropping by twice a day--which would be cruel in the long term) is to their (and the dogs') advantage. You should not be paying rent or utilities.
posted by needs more cowbell at 8:05 AM on February 18, 2006

Yeah, the homeowners have this backwards. If they were going to be living in the house and you were renting a room from them, a discounted rate for taking care of the dogs would make sense--similar to discounted rates I see offered in return for some babysitting. But in those situations, they are there, present, as the landlords--making sure that the space is maintained and ultimately being responsible for the building.

But that's not what this is. They (and you) have to see this as a business proposition, without regard to your being their friend. If they had to deal with strangers to do take care of their house and dogs, they would absolutely being paying the strangers, not expecting the strangers to pay them. You'd be acting as caretaker, not renter.

In other words--no. Not a fair deal.
posted by CiaoMela at 8:06 AM on February 18, 2006

Wait, I'm confused. Why would you stay at their place *and* keep your old apartment? Aren't you basically saying that you're spending $375/month now, and you think they should pay you $300/month. So, presumably, if you sublet your old place and moved into the friends' place, and paid them $75/month, then that's exactly what you're expecting, right?
posted by occhiblu at 8:28 AM on February 18, 2006

Tell the homeowners that reduced rent is fine (Hey, pay less to get more?) for renting room and board. Then, quote them a fair (based on a couple calls to local, reputable businesses offering the relevant services)—maybe even discounted—per-day, per-week, or per-‘incident’ rate (think yard work, dog grooming, picking up dog shit when you take them for walks...) for each of the services they’re asking you to devote your time, attention, and energy to.

Then smile, shrug, and suggest that they just forget all that and pay you a weekly stipend and reimburse you for expenses.

Gotta be a person *and* a friend.
posted by Yeomans at 9:09 AM on February 18, 2006

It doesn't seem that weird to me. "Housesitting" for six months isn't the same as doing it for a week. This sort of circumstance pops up fairly regularly in academic circles, and AFAIK it's usually taken care of by renting the house to grad students at a cheap rate.

Thinking of it as paying rent to look after someone's house isn't the right way to think about it, I think -- better to think about it as renting a furnished house. That is, after all, another option they have: put some of their stuff in storage and rent a furnished house for 6 months at, guessing, $2K/month or more if it's as big'n'fancy as you say.

The dog seems to be the real wrinkle to me.

But it sounds like you don't like the deal. Well, then, that's simple: don't accept it. You're not bound to accept whatever they offer. If you don't like their proposal, decline it and let them make some sort of different offer to someone else (or you!).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:12 AM on February 18, 2006

What?? That is not a fair deal at all! Living at someone else's house and taking care of their pets is a huge pain in the butt. It's a huge commitment and will likely impact your social and work life- no weekend getaways, no going out after work because you have to go home to walk the dogs, etc...They are not doing you a favor; you would be doing them a huge favor by agreeing to watch their house and dogs. Either they are trying to take advantage of you or they are clueless as to the going rate of pet/house sitters. Turn them down, once they find out how much it will cost to hire someone else, they will probably up their offer to you. Frankly, it's not worth your time unless you are staying there rent-free and getting paid $100 a week.
posted by emd3737 at 10:39 AM on February 18, 2006

This sort of circumstance pops up fairly regularly in academic circles, and AFAIK it's usually taken care of by renting the house to grad students at a cheap rate.

Yes -- this happens all the time. Compared to some deals for long-term house-sitting (which basically amounts to renting a furnished house, something that can't be done where I live for anything like a reasonable price), the deal they are getting here is good. Of course, I have house-sat for 3 months and didn't pay rent at all -- but to me, that was an exceptionally good deal, and in fact the best living situation I've had where I'm living now.

I don't know about the going rate for house-sitters outside the academic world, though.

no going out after work because you have to go home to walk the dogs

The poster already has a dog.
posted by advil at 10:50 AM on February 18, 2006

Whoops, forgot about the poster's dog. The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes, if you live in a small apartment, people assume that they are doing you a favor by letting you stay at their big, fancy house. Think about it. Will your commute be longer? Will you be further away from friends and places you like to go? Do you really want the responibility this agreeement would entail? I'm a grad student and I get offers like this frequently, and I turn down 90% of them because the inconvenience of living in someone else's house plus the added responsibilities aren't worth the small amount of money generally offered. If they want you to stay at their house and take care of their pets and their things, then they should be paying you, not vice versa.
posted by emd3737 at 11:14 AM on February 18, 2006

Thanks for all the opinions. Yes, I see it as getting the short end of the stick, in some respect, but as Yeomans stated "paying less to get more" is not a bad way to think of it.

I would like to help them because their life in general is going thu major health changes, but I just want to make sure I am not getting yanked around. Considering the pros,I like the idea of having privacy when bf comes to visit and I could still allow the social activity of old apt. to relocate to new home, throwing dinner parties and such.

To clarify, I have no lease attachements to my current apt.. I just need to give enough notice before moving out. So I would not pay rent at all on my old apt, assuming moving out won't be a problem. It shouldn't be since it's been discussed in the past due to relationship relocation. Discussing what I pay for current apt. was a way to hypothetically assume I'd be renting my apt. but living in their home, a counter argument given by homeowners as to why I should pay rent to live in their home.

Yes I would be confined to the house unless I was able to find someone to watch the dogs if I wanted a weekend away. That has been approved by homeowners.

I think what I will do is request the rent be half or a third of what I am paying currently for my apt. I can't see turning them down if I have an opportunity to save money on rent in the long run.

thank you all again for your thoughts.
posted by wondergreen at 11:43 AM on February 18, 2006

What would it cost these people to have their pets boarded at a kennel per week, or to have a stranger care for the animals? For two dogs, probably $30-$50/day minimum depending on where you are located. I pay a friend $30/day to look after my animals when I go away for a weekend or week, and I think that is a deal. $10 is ridiculous. You are doing them a service and favor that would cost them a lot if you were not in the picture.
posted by madstop1 at 7:32 PM on February 18, 2006

We pay for people to sit our dogs all the time, and we have paid at least $30 a day. (They take care of them at their own home). Reduced rent don't hack it.
posted by generic230 at 9:14 PM on February 18, 2006

i got paid 800 dollars to watch one cat and one house for two months your getting screwed...
posted by stilgar at 10:29 PM on February 18, 2006