Affordable rent in exchange for some dog care

February 15, 2025 4:45 PM

I, retired librarian, have a large-ish house in a college town, with a studio wing that I’ve rented out some years. I also have 3 mid-size dogs that come and go from house to fenced yard. The dogs make it hard for me to take even short trips because of the cost of kenneling the 3; this is a rural area and overnight dog sitting isn’t yet really a thing here. I may also need to be across the country for several months, if an old friend’s illness enters a terminal phase.

To meet these competing needs, I want to find a housemate who is a “dog person” - who is relaxed, knowledgeable, and good with dogs, who has a day job and wants to be long-term, and who needs or wants a rent much lower than the market level, eg $200-300. And compatible with me, female person, in exchange for committing to dog care during my (few) out-of-town trips.

Is this a realistic quest, or does it sound extra risky? I have often lived with housemates over the years. I have asked friends to look out for potential people. But if I end up having to advertise, how to word this clearly but succinctly, in a public-facing way?

posted by mmiddle to Pets & Animals (17 answers total)

I would give more of a market rent, and then reward by taking rent off. You can NOT make someone available to watch them. They can just NOT do it.

You remove the rent after the satisfactory dog watching is done.

You can review with them how much you are likely to be away and make sure the you come to an agreement about how much and the likely months.
posted by beccaj at 5:03 PM on February 15 [4 favorites]

Agreed that I would avoid mentioning the below-market rent to start out - unfortunately, that incentivizes desperate people to lie or stretch the truth regarding their dog-friendliness in a bid to get in.

Do you/would you allow your tenants to keep dog(s) of their own?
posted by btfreek at 5:23 PM on February 15 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: Yes, a compatible dog of their own would be okay.
posted by mmiddle at 5:26 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

I did something similar at one point, hiring a student in my college town to be a housemate with this kind of transaction figured into the rent, and it did not work out because I had not thought about a few things.
1. I did not really feel prepared for the housemate to take over the common spaces as entirely as they did. They started huge, unweildy, messy plant-potting and fermenting projects that took over the whole kitchen and made it impossible for me to use my kitchen in a relaxed way.
2. They came home really late at night and made a lot of noise.
3. Because they came home late they slept late and often could not do the tasks included in the rent barter when I needed them in the morning.
3. They often forgot to lock the door when they left the house and did other sort of "youthful" mistakes like this that really stressed me out.
The "barter" that I'd counted on -- the work i wanted them to do in exchange for a reduced rent - was not worth it to me, and then they started compaining that the rent was not reduced enough.
I think it could have worked if I had really been alert to the fact that they would, in fact, be a full housemate and that I'd have to adjust to their habits.
f i were going to do this again, I would put an ad that said "Dog lover wanted to share home." and then all the requirements i needed for an actual housemate. When I found someone potentially compatible I would discuss the barter in the interview.
posted by ojocaliente at 5:50 PM on February 15 [4 favorites]

Best answer: This is just a thought, don't know if it's a useful one... but I wonder if Trusted Housesitters might be a way to find a solution?
posted by stormyteal at 6:01 PM on February 15 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: This Trusted Housesitters operation is brilliant! I will read up on it more thoroughly but it seems ideal at first glance, and I would never have found it on my own.

Thanks, everyone, for your common sense comments and insights. All these are very helpful.
posted by mmiddle at 6:20 PM on February 15

If you do decide to try to go the rent route:

One advantage of advertising somewhat below market rate is that you will get more applicants, allowing you to be picky. Sure, people can lie, but when they come to look at the place you can ask them as many questions you need to suss them out. This is what one of my previous landlords did - she lived below the apartment I rented, and had a home office as a therapist. So it was important to her that tenants be quiet in the daytime and generally respectful. My rent was maybe $50-100 cheaper than it would have been otherwise, so I'm not talking about hugely undercutting the market rate.

I don't think you could expect them to be on-call, 365 days a year - but I bet you could find someone willing to help out in a pinch presuming they weren't traveling, etc.
posted by coffeecat at 6:50 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

I have used Trusted Housesitters as a host and I think it works pretty well. I wouldn't have thought of it but two of my relatives basically travel the world as digital nomads and they do the sitting side of it, all around the world. We've had 3 sitters so far. 2 were amazingly great, and 1 was fine. Even the fine one did the important pet care part well, so that's okay. I don't book anyone who doesn't have very good reviews from previous sits.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:08 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

I was this person in grad school. My landlord lived downstairs, I had a couple rooms upstairs, and we shared the kitchen and garden.I was one in a long line of grad students who had lived there. She had three dogs, and when she traveled, I took care of the dogs, the house and the garden in exchange for free rent. It worked out great for everyone, but she was very used to this kind of an arrangement.
posted by rockindata at 7:42 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

I've done international pet sitting in Spain, Dominican, US, Vanuatu, and a few other places. I've done it for free and I've done it for money. Every client I've ever had is a repeat client because there are many bad sitters who aren't even animal people — they just want free rent. people find out that I do this, I often get asked how to start or to write references for people, but when I ask about their experience and interest in animals, often it's non-existent. ("How hard could it be?!")

Trusted Housesitters has two types of reviews: a) one that someone can upload themselves that are "written by someone else" and verified ones that come from sits that happen through the site. Only trust the latter. My advice is that when you read reviews, make sure you pay more attention to how people are with the animals rather than other aspects. When
posted by dobbs at 8:11 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I think finding a (full-rate) roommate who is a dog person, but then planning to use TrustedHousesitters or Rover (paid dogwalking/dogsitting app) with the roommate only as a backup might be your ideal!
posted by EarnestDeer at 4:04 AM on February 16 [3 favorites]

I had someone offer to do a task in exchange for reduced rent of a room, to which I happily agreed, but then they never actually did the task and seemed annoyed when I asked, so I just went back to the original rental amount... but then they were resentful and asked to have the discount regardless. I ended up evicting them pretty quickly for repeated late rent payment, but it was a lesson that sometimes people value (or undervalue) something based on what they have to pay.
posted by bighappyhairydog at 7:07 AM on February 16 [1 favorite]

n-thing keeping housemate and dog care as separate as possible, unless through a third party like trusted housesitter

I was essentially conned into being the type of roommate you are looking for. The addition of dog care (which was way understated up front, compared to the landlord's actual requests) turned what otherwise would have been an ideal living situation into one of the worst I've been in due to the relentless pressure to kowtow to the owner's last min dog care whims. I'm not implying you'd be as overbearing and passive aggressive as my roommate/landlord was, but I can tell you it went downhill fast in my case. IMO, when someone's sense of shelter and safety is threatened by deviating from standard roommate agreements, all hell usually breaks loose. The only exceptions to that that I've seen are explicit, third party alternate agreements like trusted housesitter
posted by seemoorglass at 10:25 AM on February 16 [1 favorite]

We've had great success as hosts with TH, but keep in mind that people are more likely to flake than they would with a paid gig. We've had a few people pull out sort of last minute. FWIW those people have all been older retirees who just decided they didn't want to take a vacation after all, rather than the relatively younger folks we've booked. This never ruined a trip for us because we had backup or were able to find an alternative in time. We are also in a college town, and still we tend to get 2-10 applications per offering. Agree with post about vetting by verified reviews.
posted by codhavereturned at 1:17 PM on February 16 [1 favorite]

So I think it depends on how much of a dog lover they are, and how tight they are financially. Like: while I was attending school and money was tight this would have been the *ideal* situation for me, and I would have cheerfully scheduled my life around it; but I also adore dogs, had two German shepherds, and am comfortable dealing with dog hijinks.

I would actually try to advertise by putting the most negative aspects of the dogs up front, because you'll drive off anyone who's not used to dogs, and anyone who's used to/good with dogs will just kind of eyeroll and assume you're trying to warn off people who are bad with dogs, and note that this house sharing would occasionally involve them needing to watch the dogs.
posted by FutureExpatCorb at 10:27 PM on February 16 [1 favorite]

Just wanted to echo that I've also used Trusted House sitters and have had good experiences.
posted by medusa at 3:20 PM on February 17

I travel more than average for as much as three weeks at a time and totaling a few months out of the year. I also have a neurotic dog who can't be boarded or stay with friends. My housemate receives a hefty discount in exchange for pet care (with supplemental help from a professional dog walker when needed). Unlike ojocaliente, my renter was an existing friend before moving in and our personality quirks don't conflict, and they love my dog as if he were their own, so it works out well.

Kind of like rockindata, I had a somewhat similar setup in college - I lived in the basement apartment of a retired professor for a reduced rate in exchange for taking care of the landlord's cats while they traveled and some help around the house (one half of the couple was badly physically disabled). But I was a bit more mature than most of my cohort at the time and working full time running my own business while attending classes somewhere between part and full time depending on what work allowed. Had I not been able to demonstrate that level of maturity, they may not have gone for it.
posted by Candleman at 8:25 PM on February 19