House Sitting Fulltime Caring for Homes Pets and Gardens.
We have been house sitting and pet sitting fulltime since January 2023, mostly in Adelaide Suburbs, Gawler and Surroundings. Find out more about us in our video intro below…
Are you looking for someone to lovingly care for and exercise your dog, or cuddle up with your cats, while keeping your home safe and secure? We could be just who you’re looking for. You can go away safe in the knowledge that everything back home will be taken care of just as if you had never left. Your pets will remain in their own beds, with their own routines!
House Sitting and Caring for Pets is our way of life for another year
We’ve decided to house and pet sit until our new house is built around April ’25. Our semi-retired lifestyle, coupled with working from home, means that we get to spend a lot of time around the home. This means your pets get lots of attention and affection.
We love animals and so particularly enjoy this aspect of house sitting. Our aim is to allow you to enjoy your travel adventures without any stress or worries, by providing a professional pet and house sitting service for you. You’ll get status reports as often as you require and pictures and updates to provide as much reassurance as you need. The best and most important part of house sitting, is that you can totally relax and enjoy an anxiety free holiday. Andy you will be reassured that your house, garden and pets are safe and well cared for.
Skills and abilities useful to House Sitting
As well as looking after pets, we also have other skills and abilities which may help you while we’re house sitting. Some of these have been gained through owning our own properties and businesses, and some through house sitting:
- John has gardening, pruning and lawn mowing skills
- Looking after both inside and outside potted plants (even African Violets and Orchids)
- Julieanne has computer and technological skills
- Julieanne was a “people’s nurse” at one time in her working life, so is confident with giving oral medicines to pets and basic first aid
- Problem solving skills if something unexpected happens
- Email reports, photos, videos and updates available
- Experienced dog walking if the dog is already walked regularly and has good behaviour.
What you might want to know about us when we’re House Sitting
If you were looking after our home and pets, we’d want to ask you some questions. Hopefully this section will give you some answers to specific questions you might have.
Do you charge for your house sitting services?
It depends… We obtain the majority of our long term house sits on Aussie House Sitters. We do these long term (longer than 3 to weeks) sits for free, in exchange for receiving free rent and utilities. NOTE: Please bear in mind that any extra very time consuming work will need to be negotiated on our first meeting. Garden care will be limited to mowing the lawn and watering as necessary.
We like getting paid for short stays (3 weeks or less) for a number of reasons as listed below. However, sometimes we have a gap between longer house sits and we’re very happy to do a short sit for free. So, please contact us with your dates.
- Unpacking our things and settling in, ready to stay with pets in our care takes around 4 hours. The time taken depends on how easy it is for us to get from the car to the house, especially if there are lots of stairs. Then, packing up again takes another 4 hours.
- Sometimes, there are lots of pets to look after and the garden needs a lot of care, so that all takes up our time too.
- Due to the extra time spent for a short sit, we don’t get much time to do our normal paid work. So, it’s great to get paid through MadPaws to make up for our lost income.
- Depending on how far we travel to your home, it may cost us a lot in petrol. We also come to your home for a meet and greet before the house sit.
If you would like to engage us for a short term sit, please view our rates and availability at MadPaws. When you book us through MadPaws, the company provides Pet Accident Cover Insurance.
House Sitting Contracts and references
We are more than happy to sign a “house sitting agreement”. We can supply references from previous house-sitting assignments and character references plus police reports that you might require. If you need to contact people who wrote our references we can supply email details or a phone number. However, we would need to get in touch with the home owner first to make sure it’s okay. You will also find all of our reviews here and here.
Also, if you do want us to house sit for you, we have a comprehensive house and pet sitting template for you to complete, which will make it much easier for us to look after your pets. The template makes it much easier for you as a home owner to remember everything we need to know in your absence. That way, we shouldn’t have to contact you while you’re on holiday, about anything you’ve forgotten to tell us.
We will provide you with our 5 star reviews, references and police reports.
Have you owned property yourselves?
We have owned two properties, one was a rental property in Adelaide. The other was our own home, which we owned for 20 years in Ingle Farm, a suburb in Adelaide, before moving to Queensland in 2004. John renovated every room of our house and also did extensive work on an extension. So, we understand the importance of looking after your property investment. He also landscaped the pretty large garden (3 times out the front). There were big lawned areas at first (John was head greenkeeper at Valley View Golf Course) with native plants. Then, he changed to a small lawn with LOTS of Roses (standard and the ground cover roses) and Camelias, Azaleas and a lot of other plants! He had the whole garden on an automatic watering system, so it was easy during those hot summers in Adelaide.
You can be confident that because we were property owners we understand the importance of looking after your property and your investment.
While living on the Gold Coast in Queensland, we rented 3 separate properties over 19 years, one in Southport and the other 2 in Pacific Pines. It was always easy for us to find a home to rent because we looked after the properties and gardens so well. It wasn’t easy for us to move though, because John accumulated 50 or so potted plants, especially when he was working in Bunnings Nursery and couldn’t resist buying them all the time!
Are you active people?
We are both fit, healthy and active non smokers. John goes for a long jog almost every day and we both do weight training and cardio exercise at a Gym 2 or 3 times a week. I love to go lap swimming too, when I’m living near an indoor heated pool.
For the last 15 years, John has played the part of Mick Jagger in a Rolling Stones tribute show in Queensland. He’s able to dance on stage while he’s singing because he’s so fit.
What about pets?
Pets have always been a part of our lives and we’re extremely comfortable with, and enjoy being around cats, all different breeds of dogs, chickens and fish. However, we’re not used to larger dogs and much prefer caring for small to medium sizes.
I owned a poodle while growing up and once married, we had a number of different cats and also had a Red Heeler named Sam. One of our cats lived until she was 21 years and another was 20 (she drove to Queensland with our teenage daughter and us). We have also cared for our adult children’s pets over the years.
We really do understand how hard it is to leave your pets in the care of others, especially as they get older or require medications. Be assured we will give yours all the love and attention they need while you are away, whether that be special walks, favourite games or unusual dietary requirements.
How do you spend your downtime?
We are social but also very happy and content with our own company and considered homebodies by many of our friends and family. Relaxing around the home with the animals, reading a book, painting (in John’s case) or watching a movie is often enough for our relaxation.
At one time, we also loved to go Scuba Diving, but haven’t done that for about 6 years now.
We also have 5 grandchildren (ages range from 4 months old upto the oldest who is almost 17 years) we love to spend time with, when we’re in South Australia.
How practical are you around the home and garden?
John is a retired horticulturalist, having worked many years on golf courses and many in plant nurseries. He also landscaped a magnificent garden at our own property, with around 50 standard roses, and numerous other trees and plants. Of course, it’s always much easier to care and maintain a garden if the trees and plants are pruned each year and looked after properly.
At a previous house sit (there for 7 weeks), one of the homeowner’s hobbies is to grow and propogate African Violets. She has 12 fully grown plants and about 50 very young violets of various sizes, that she left for us to water and nurture. The young violets grew so fast, I had to move them around so they didn’t fall over. The fully grown ones were all flowering beautifully. There were also a number of orchids and many other indoor plants, some quite delicate. I’m quite proud of myself with how healthy I kept them, although I spent way too much time caring for them!
I (that’s Julieanne:-) am also good with technology and can usually solve a problem such as the internet going down or working out how to use a piece of equipment in the home. For example, while we were in Clare it didn’t rain for about 2 weeks (surprisingly) so the 2 acre garden was getting dry. I contacted the owners and asked them if we could turn on the irrigation system. It wasn’t just a matter of turning it on – I had to download the app on my phone and find the place to connect the app with the physical devices. I managed to do that and the garden got watered every day until it rained.
Do you work?
We are both semi retired. I do freelance work from home, using my laptop, so it’s very important for us to have access to the Internet.
John has worked with plants most of his life, so he prunes and propogates plants and small trees. John is also a Musician and Artist, so he does some solo “Mick Jagger” performances and is also looking to sell his art work.
Why do you house sit?
We decided to house sit in Australia, so we could save some money ready to purchase our own home again. We signed a contract in January and our house should be built by June 2025. In 2004, we sold our home in Adelaide and moved to the Gold Coast. During that time, we were hoping to purchase another home with our savings. However, after the economical changes over the last couple of years, we realised we needed to take a different path.
In 2022 we did some part time pet sitting and loved it, so decided to put our belongings into storage and house sit full time. We have recently signed a contract for a house being built, which is due to be completed in April 2025. We love caring for other people’s pets while their owners are away, knowing everything is being cared for in their home.
Do you like to house sit in one place for a long time?
We would prefer to stay in one property for at least 4 weeks and even 2 or more months (we have just completed a 4 month sit) would be great! As full time house sitters, we carry a lot of things in our car, so each time we move, there is a lot of unpacking and organising to do in new accommodation.
Therefore, the longer we can stay in one place, the less unpacking and packing we have to do! Also, the longer we stay somewhere, the more the pets get to know and love us, so they feel more comfortable too.
However, sometimes we accept shorter sits if there’s a gap between the longer assignments.
Which parts of Australia would you like to house sit?
We like to do house sits in Adelaide suburbs including as far north as Gawler and Clare, so we can see more of our daughters and grandchildren.
Driving and getting about
We both have drivers licenses and our own car, so we always have our own transport.
Availability and further questions
To find out about our current availability please get in touch via the contact page. It’s important that you feel totally comfortable with us looking after your home and pets. Therefore, apart from the imformation we have provided, please ask any specific questions you have about anything and we will do the same. We always like to meet you and your pets before confirming a house sit. However, occasionally, we may not be able to meet you, so we would do a video call with you instead.
If you have any questions now, please go to our contact page and send us an email. We will get back to you as soon as we can (usually internet dependent if we are travelling between house sits).
Our house sitter profiles
As full-time Australian house sitters we currently maintain online profiles at 2 house sitting websites. At the time of writing, most of our assignments are from Aussie House Sitters, so all our reviews are on our Aussie House Sitters Profile here and on Mad Paws here:
Get in touch
Please take a look at our 5 star reviews and check out our photo gallery which gives an overview of our lifestyle and shows many of the pets we’ve cared for. If you think we may be the right house sitters to look after your treasured pets, home and possessions, then send us a message: Get in touch here