For Francesca Cross and Christopher Thrower, a British couple who lived in a flat in south London for a decade, minding people\u2019s homes and pets became a way to fulfil their dream of moving to Australia. In mid-2023 they moved out of their apartment and started a six-month period of house- and pet-sitting while saving for the big move.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of logistics when you house-sit full-time, such as trying to line them up nicely, meeting the owners, going through the pet\u2019s routine \u2026 it definitely takes a lot of planning and commitment,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n
By December 2023 they had saved up enough to make the move to Melbourne, where they had a house sit set up on their arrival. \u201cThis was really nice to help us settle in and find our feet, without paying an extortionate rate for accommodation,\u201d they say. \u201cPlus, the doggy, Lexie, was such a sweetheart and helped us with the transition to a new country we\u2019d now be calling home.\u201d<\/p>\n
A friend of mine has a child and they can\u2019t secure rent \u2026 So our house becomes like a second home<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Leonie Van Eyk<\/p>\n
Leonie van Eyk, a film-maker and artist living in a small house on the edge of Castlemaine in Victoria with her dog, Scooter, says looking for a pet-sitter is different to simply putting your home on Airbnb, because you need to find someone who will understand your pet\u2019s peculiarities. \u201cSharing your house and animals is very much a trust exercise,\u201d she says. \u201cYou want the pet-sitter to bond with your animal and feel at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
For this reason, Van Eyk prefers to source sitters from within her own community. \u201cThat helps to build trust, knowing they are already connected to my community rather than just randoms,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso I\u2019m aware that for some people this can give them some welcome breathing space. A friend of mine has a child and they can\u2019t secure rent in this town, as it\u2019s become so expensive. So our house becomes like a second home to her and she loves our dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rose Bishop, who has hosted Mifsud multiple times, agrees that she finds it easier to trust a local sitter. \u201cI\u2019ve used an online pet-sitting service before but it was exorbitantly expensive and the sitter didn\u2019t even stay at my apartment,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
When Mifsud isn\u2019t available, Bishop will ask \u201cfriends who are trying to get out of their sharehouses for a while, or who are travelling to Melbourne and need accommodation \u2013 and so far it\u2019s always been comedians!\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lot of work and admin, and people need to be doing it for the right reasons<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Jacqueline Mifsud<\/p>\n
\u201cI love my dumb babies so much,\u201d she says of her cats. \u201cIt\u2019s so important to me that they\u2019re getting love and attention from someone in my community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cross and Thrower say they have minded their share of \u201ccharacters\u201d including a dog who peed with excitement every time they came home (they learned to not show him any love until they were outside) and a teenage cat called Kevin who had his own room and simply didn\u2019t like them. \u201cSo it was less about, \u2018We need to talk about Kevin\u2019 and more, \u2018We need to leave Kevin alone.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Mifsud says a conscientious attitude is vital. \u201cI\u2019ve heard horror stories of bad pet-sitters \u2013 someone who killed someone\u2019s fish, another who didn\u2019t change the kitty litter for three weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of work and admin, and people need to be doing it for the right reasons,\u201d she says. \u201cYou have to really love animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot more people out there doing house- and pet-sits now owing to the cost-of-living crisis \u2026 I just want people considering this to take the responsibility seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacqueline Mifsud remembers the moment in 2023 when she made what she now describes as a \u201cbold life…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":132087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-132086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114999633102194480","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}