House Sitting?

[Bingeworker]

I was wondering if any of you have experience at getting house-sitting gigs.  I am on the possible cusp of adding RE to my FI, and that would open up my ability to have flexible dates when travelling, which would mean availability to do house-sitting for my accommodations at destination.  I love animals so looking after pets is no problem.  I have a husband who is not keen on the idea but who I am sure I can talk into it (he's not RE-ing but is self-employed and can work remotely).

I know about a couple of the online sites for connecting sitters with houses, are there any you would recommend or avoid?

I actually have experience on being on the the other end of the house-sitting diad.   When I re-occupied my rental house several years ago, I was doing work contracts that involved extended travel so I took a chance and got a house sitter from Europe (I'm in Canada), someone I found off a website.  She was a wonderful and responsible person, but unfortunately, around 1 month in to the 3 month gig, she broke a hip and was hospitalized, and couldn't return to my house as it had stairs!  (She recovered well, although since she was in her 60's I think it was an extended process.)  So I had to get family to stop by and look after the place, which luckily wasn't the problem I had thought it might be (I hadn't wanted to be a burden on them), so I went that route on future trips before selling the house and getting a condo instead.

So anyway, just wondering if any of you effectively use this for your trips.  I know there are more folks looking to house-sit than people looking for sitters, but if I have lots of flexibility on dates, will I be able to snag the gig more often than not?

[afuera]

I feel like their is much more demand for pet sitters than house sitters just based on how much we pay our pet sitters every year.  I used a site called Rover to find both of my sitters, they come to my house and sleep in our guest room, at live at our house for as long as we are away to watch our dogs (we have 2).  I have actually watched cats for colleagues that were traveling (close to my house, just dropped in to feed the cats and visit/watch netflix with them) and have debated setting up a Rover account as a sitter to add another side hustle option when I am too lazy to referee.
Most of the folks I know love to travel and love their pets so it can be pretty lucrative to be pet/house sitter for short weekend/week long trips.  Good luck!

[oneyearfromnow]

@Bingeworker   The husband and I were discussing this very topic recently!  We have been doing some preliminary investigation, but nothing too in depth yet.

So, following the thread to learn of others experiences.