I only work out of the client's home simply because I have a small apartment and two large dogs.

I started with a ridiculously low rate for house sitting (I think it was like $18/night?) and once I got my first review, more requests started coming in within 48 hours of completing my first stay. Your rate almost seems high for your area as far as house sitting goes. Maybe drop it a buck or two?

Are you advertising? If you're doing CL ads, maybe remove any rate details or information regarding your boarding options and focus on the fact you are a travelling sitter? New business cards/marketing material which focuses on house sitting rather than dog boarding? Leave those at the dog park, vets offices, community boards, pet stores (if they have a public board) etc. Maybe even talk to your current/recent/previous clients to make sure they know that option is available, too.

I'm still trying to bring less, but it's getting hard! I recently had a 2 week stay and was mortified when I realized I needed to ask my client to help me bring in a bag of my portioned/frozen dinners I'd put together just for that stay. I didn't realize I couldn't lift it until I was trying to get settled in the house (my boyfriend had packed the truck for me).

I bring: Coffee, creamer, a french press (I'm surprised how many people drink coffee but have no means of making it at home!)

Also I bring toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent if the stay is 3+ days, and all of my toiletries in travel containers. The laundry detergent lets me wash/re-wear clothes instead of having to bring more. I only bring enough to get me through 2 days, so on the third day, I wash.

My pillow, a blanket, and plenty of food/snacks for myself especially on long stays (on short stays, it's just easier to either run home for dinner or grab a bite nearby). Beyond that, like Deb said, layers, phone, charger, laptop, etc.

I ended up reposting it without any edits other than the title (I wasn't sure if maybe the $x/night was seen as "misleading" when addt'l dogs/holidays change that?) I can post the link here. I didn't see that it was a violation but I'm gonna double check first to make sure.

Hi, thank you both! The ad was posted just over 1 week ago. I renewed it just yesterday. I had gone in and done some edits, saved, and clicked the link to "view your ad" and that's when it came up saying it had been flagged for removal. It wasn't that it expired, it got reported/removed.

I used the recommended formatting almost verbatim (with a sentence or two added). Nobody can tell me why. Has anyone else had this happen? I get a good bit of traffic from that ad, and I'm concerned about re-posting it now that it's been removed.