MindMyHouse News

Good news MindMyHousies. We have finally upgraded our photo editor :). Some of you may have noticed that it was a little bit unwieldy. Some of you even wrote in to us at the help desk complaining about it, saying quote “come on, how hard can it be to fix this?”. We took your comments on board (on the chin) and have just now released a new and improved version. We hope you like?

Photo editor upgrade

Uploading multiple images
When you upload multiple images, you can now easily edit each of them as they upload. This wasn’t possible before.

No more size limitations!
Previously, we restricted you to certain sizes. You may have noticed the “warning, your image is too small” message. No more. Blam!

Edit an existing image
We hope you have fun with this. But remember, we only store a low resolution version of your original, so editing your edited image is a bit like photocopying a photocopy (tik tokers: a photocopier is a big grey machine that has lots of buttons on it and does weird flashy light stuff under the lid :). Ps. this wasn’t possible before.

New colour controls
For those control junkies out there (or image conscious), adjust brightness, contrast, exposure, saturation, clarity, and gamma like a pro. What is even a ‘gamma’?

New filters
Well, it ain’t Instagram. But you can still choose from a set of pretty filters. Probably of more interest to house sitters than home owners you say?

New annotation tools
Add text, draw rectangles, circles, lines and arrows. Free draw with a sharpie. Great for pointing out a subject of interest. Probably of more interest to home owners than house sitters we say (check out our examples below). Don’t overdo it though.

And also…
We now have better cropping tools, better orientation detection (for mobiles) and it all works better on mobiles too…etc. You get the picture.

Anyhoo, let us know what you think 🙂 And don’t forget that landscape formatted photos look better on MindMyHouse than portrait – just turn the phone sideways for those awesome shots.

House sitting – our busy times of the year (in the US)

Alan (our technical genius) is a curious fellow, and loves to slice and dice the data when he gets the chance. One question he answered recently was “When are the busy months for house sitting assignments in the US?” See below for the answer (based on starting dates in 2022). Obviously late summer to Autumn, right?

Some global trends in house sitting

Which pets do home owners need house sitters to look after the most?

* Stats based on MindMyHouse home owner listings since 2006

Switzerland & Italy anyone?

Everyday, one of our treasured tasks is to manually approve upcoming house sitting assignments that are publicly listed on MindMyHouse. We noticed an increase in house sitting assignments for Switzerland and Italy. And also they seem to disappear pretty quickly too. Is this the new place to be? Home owners joining MindMyHouse from both Italy and Switzerland are one and a half times up from pre-pandemic.  So, a warm welcome to our new home owners 🙂

And globally?

And if you were wondering how house sitting was faring globally, here is another graph for our sitters. We added the US for comparison. You’ll notice the huge COVID dip.

* Stats based on MindMyHouse home owner membership (not activity)