"My Family and Other Animals!" Caring family available to look after your pets and home!

About this sitter

We are an English, homeschooling family,(headed up by Richard, a retired Teacher and Laura, a "Home-Manager") gaining cultural and educational experiences around the world. We are currently in Nicaragua, where we are learning Spanish and experiencing some of the Central American culture and climate!

We are looking for house sits that might help facilitate this endeavour.

Why they want to house sit

Our children adore all animals and have befriended many a stray during our travels. Since bringing pets on the road is not practical, housesitting gives us the perfect opportunity to care for animals as well as explore new places.

Their experience

Laura has had decades of experience house-sitting, during her time as a nanny and tutor; looking after pets, homes (and other's children!) in various locations around London, England but also in New York, USA and in Paris, Angers and Annecy in France.

The children especially enjoy volunteering at the local finca/community project where they help feed, muck out and give lots of cuddles to various animals there including Rudy the Rooster, Primavera and her kittens, chickens, rabbits, gerbils, parrots and turtle! We were recently entrusted to maintain the whole project and care for the animals while the owners and workers were away for the weekend.

The children particularly love dogs and have had experience with their aunt's various Golden Retrievers over the years. They take a keen interest in the lives and loves of the many local strays and have named them all! They have helped with looking after one of the street dog's litter of puppies and attended to her post-partum welfare. The older girls have impressive knowledge of different breeds and behaviour traits. They love to do deep dives into researching whatever breed of dog or animal is in their care.

What can they bring to the assignment

"Many hands make light work!" As a family we work well as a team and all members enjoy participating. Domestic skills are an important aspect of our home education and the children have been taught to respect, clean and manage living spaces well. We try to employ the Konmari method of organisation with minimalist principles, so although our family is relatively large, we are clutter-free, well organised and able to live comfortably even in small spaces.

We have all learnt to maintain our adult-sized swimming pool over the last five months which is a real art! But the challenge has forced us to research, ask advice and gain a very good understanding of the filtration and chemical processes involved. This knowledge will now be transferable and will aid us in maintaining any pool in the future.

We value physical exercise and love to be outdoors (Richard has a MSc. in Sports Science), so as a family we are very strong and healthy. We encourage the children to participate with us in any ourdoor projects that are going on. We all love gardening and have had experience of preparing soil, weeding, planting, pruning and gathering. Laura is familiar with fermenting and other homestead prepping methods so we can also bring these skills to help maintain your land or garden.

All these skills enable us to keep your home and property clean, tidy and well maintained and your pets healthy and happy during our stay.