Hi.
I am considering offering House Sitting services to potential clients. What exactly does this involve? How long is a standard stay? What is a typical fee?
Thanks.
Dan.
Rates vary greatly in different geographic areas, also taking into consideration sitter experience and service level provided. Rover publishes a general guideline that it should cover up to 24 hours of care. However each sitter and client is free to make whatever arrangements they agree to. To avoid surprises where you or your clients end up not happy, I’d suggest you communicate exactly what you provide and confirm client is agreeable to that.
House sitting means you will stay at the client's house for 24 hours and take care of the pets, feed them, walk them, clean up after them.
At your meet and greet, you will ask what the clients wants, needs and expectations are. You will ask if you are allowed to eat their food and drink their water, coffee or tea. You will discuss where you can sleep, if you are to use the bedding and towels, whether you are to use their bathtub or shower, TV, netflix, etc. You will discuss their pet care, what time to feed the pets and what time to walk them and for how long. You will discuss whether you are allowed to leave the house to do other stuff or shopping. Some clients will demand you are to stay 24 hours a day. Some will allow you to go to work or gym or walk other people's dogs etc.
You will also ask where the cameras are and you will make sure there are NO cameras in your bedroom or bathroom. That's against the law.
You will also discuss if you are allowed to drink or smoke (if you do). From posts here I have noticed that some clients actually tell their sitters to bring alcohol and cigarettes and their partners to spend the night. I don't understand why the clients would ask their sitters to do so, but it's their house and their rules... make sure the clients are not planning on recording you and your partner in the bedroom or bathroom. It would be a common sense not to do so , but again i have read few posts here where clients asked the sitter to bring a boyfriend, and then they started recording them on cameras. So be careful...
Basically that's it. Good luck and have fun, and be safe!
I don’t recall what you cited about clients. Indeed, I’ve read and responded to numerous clients who were madder then Hell that sitter brought other people ( including partner) in the home, were smoking and/or drinking. I agree with everything else though.