Do I have a chance of getting a housesitting gig?

April 10, 2007 6:03 PM

Have you had any experience finding a place to house sit?

I'm looking to house sit in DC for about August-March of this coming year. I think I'm a great candidate (non-smoking, single, no pets, professional, clean) and I've checked out some of the house sitting matchup services, but they all seem to require that the would-be house sitter pay a fee to participate and I'm not sure if it's worthwhile. I've checked out CL, but I'm not sure if that will work either. Have you heard of anyone finding places to house sit? Any tips? I don't need to be in the same place the whole time, but I would like to cover the whole period somehow or other.

posted by Amizu to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

I would be very surprised if you found a housesit in the DC metro area for that length of time. If you will settle for a week here and a week there, you might have more luck, but you also risk going several weeks between housesitting assignments. Btw, the main site I used was housecarers.com.

Anyway, I subscribed to one of the (fee based) house sitting sites for a while. I found that most of the home owners wanted to meet and interview in person so this might not be practical for you. Also, most wanted someone who was somewhat local with something keeping them in the area (job, etc.). Finally, if you are doing this for free housing, be aware that some of the long term ones wanted payment/rent. If your goal is just furnished housing instead of a hotel, sublet.com might be a better route for you.

There used to be a site out there for academia (and possibly foreign service employees) to swap housing and/or find long-term sitters while they were posted overseas or on sabbatical. This might work out for you if you have a place to swap. I can't remember the name of the site or the url, but you should find it with a bit of googling.
posted by necessitas at 6:53 PM on April 10, 2007

oops, went back and posted the housecarers.com in the wrong paragraph!
posted by necessitas at 6:54 PM on April 10, 2007

I haven't done any longterm housesitting myself, but know several people who have. In all cases, they worked through our local university. Professors have long sabbaticals and vacations and like to keep their houses functioning, and once you're in the network, you can be passed from one to the next for long-range stays. Make a good poster and a separate page of contract info, personal references and rental references, copy it many times, dress presentably and drop in department offices at universities near where you'd like to live. Introduce yourself to the administrative assistant, ask if they know of anyone looking, leafve your reference page satpled to a flyer, and post your flyer on the bulletin boards. Remember you're aiming for the professors, not the students, so stay away from the student union type bulletin boards.
posted by Miko at 7:28 PM on April 10, 2007

Yes - universities are a good source for this. Try looking on sabbaticalhomes.com which lists housesitting gigs.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:55 PM on April 10, 2007

Here are two current listings near DC: Arlington, Maryland.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:08 PM on April 10, 2007

Diligently following up - I did not get a house sitting gig. Tried and tried and it just never happened.
posted by Amizu at 8:04 PM on October 22, 2007