Bloggers on assignment

“Aspiring to be at home with ourselves is a quest.”- Michael Brown: The Presence Process Under the Donald Trump regime in this hot political summer, Americans are talking about fleeing to Canada. The news has been bad. Reports of collusion with Russia, obstruction of justice, treason and impeachment are mild compared to the violence “on […]

My husband and I have lived in Vegas for 10 years. We are both happily retired. All of our children and pets are now grown and gone. Our condo in the Las Vegas Country Club is 3 blocks from the Strip and 15 minutes from McCarran airport. It’s an affordable place to live on a […]

House sitting has provided us some wonderful experiences. From living next to a castle to having Bono just around the corner, house sitting certainly is an adventure. However, what we have enjoyed the most is spending time with a variety of animals and having the opportunity to explore our new surroundings with them.

While working in London, I was shocked to find that few of my English colleagues had ever visited their neighboring country Scotland. Of those who had been, the majority only went to the major cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.

It has been my experience house sitting that when you get asked to do so for someone, whether it be a friend or stranger, you treat their home as well as or better than your own. Believe it or not, many people do not apply this principle when they embark on a house-sitting venture. Before house-sitting for someone, meet with them first to go over everything in the house.

Meg looks after an awesome dog named Bowser while house sitting in Montreal.

The intrepid blogger Tom Hill shares with us his lesson’s learnt on this, his 30th house sit. Features three loveable doggies, a Land Rover and a healthy dose of owner-sitter communication.

Graphic designer and Shropshire (UK) woman, Liz Cadd, has plenty of time to do all of the hectic things in life that one needs to keep going. However, when a North Devon home owner contacted her through MindMyHouse looking for a cat and house sitter for his coastal property, she jumped at the chance to get away for a time. Walking the coastal paths every day and returning to someone else’s home and cat every evening proved to be a great inspiration for this ‘plein air’ artist. Liz says that she ‘got just what I hoped for out of this experience: time slowed down, I painted, and I relaxed.’ See for yourself!

Our favourite European house sitters extraordinaire, Tom Hill and Lin Worthington, have 70-odd house sitting assignments under their metaphorical belts now. So they know what they are talking about, right! Tom has added this new chapter to his excellent e-book, ‘Successful House Sitting. An easy how-to guide by Tom Hill of Housem8.com’. It’s all about staying safe while on assignment. Read it while shaking the brick dust from your duvet in that posh French villa you always dreamed of staying in…

Intrepid house sitter, Clare, has a very useful penchant for making lists. This is great for us, her readers, as she itemises the nitty gritty of her daily struggles as a house sitter in the wilds of suburban Queensland, Australia. One little eye-opener comes at the very end of this article. Keep reading…

Tell us what you think you couldn’t do without while on assignment. Your very handy and helpful personal lists would be welcomed here!

Mike and Lynne are serious full time house sitting vacationers. Flying between Aussie and Europe, they have seen it all on their busy itinerary of chateau minding and estate tending across the Continent. During one particular assignment in the midi-Pyrenees in France they had a very hairy time trying to keep Millie, a French hound, and Lottie, a Labrador puppy, from meeting dire fates. This is the story of 142 perished poultry, a joyous killing spree, a receipt and a trigger happy gendarme. Walkies!

Tom Hill and Linda Worthington say they feel like they are living the lifestyle of millionaires. Yet they earned only UK 10,000 pounds between them in the 2006-2007 tax year. Huh? It would seem that the secret to all of this contentment and their feeling of having ‘riches’ is their ability to borrow other people’s homes all year long. On the European continent that is. Nice.

Tom Hill is a regular contributor to our Community Area. If you want a bit of this kind of action too, read this summary of Tom and Lin’s ‘how to do as we do’ guide. Better still, wait for the publication!

Self-empowerment guru and proud blogger, Aaron Potts, has a small epiphany while on house sitting assignment. It seems that your perception of your own little Universe can shift a degree or two when you do something as simple as getting out of your car and walking around your own streets or minding a neighbour’s house for a time.

I think our membership are already in tune with Aaron’s message. When asked, a full 32% of our house sitter members state ‘wanting a change of scene’ as their main reason for house sitting. Yes!

But Aaron says it best:

‘Your life is out there right now waiting for you to experience it. Get outside of your comfort zone, break out of your routine, try new things, peek around new corners, and see what life is like outside of your little box. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you find out!’

A touching account of how two people found each other at the right moment to really ditch their old, crappy lives and embark on something new and beautiful together. House sitting that is, and plenty of it.

MindMyHouse’s resident Blogger on Assignment, Clare, continues to bravely housesit a variety of Brisbane’s more comfortable suburban properties. This third post from Clare is all to do with hard lessons learned about how good intentions need to be reigned in least things go wrong!

Clare of Brisbane finds herself in the enviable position of being able to turn down offers of house sitting assignments. So why would you say ‘no’ to a seven-week sit in a nice house in your chosen area? What would you do if the owner wanted you to pay for the water you use to keep their massive garden alive during a period of water restrictions in a blazing Queensland summer. Pass!

Buckbeak the princess parrot has full-time house sitter, Clare, at her beck and call. Despite being lovingly blown on and having her beak stroked, Buckbeak suffers an affliction common among the aged of any species. Nobody mention that insensitive Monty P*thon sketch!

Have you written a story/poem/article with a house sitting theme that you’d like to see published here? Bloggers on Assignment is your forum! We encourage everyone with something to say on the weird and wonderful world of house sitting to submit their work to our editor for consideration. You can do this by email at help@mindmyhouse.com or you can post your work directly into the blogging software in our Community area (you’ll need to register again in this section to do this). For more on the MindMyHouse Community area see our FAQs. For information on how to register with the blogsite and post your work directly to our editor see our FAQs.