As budget travelers, we’re members of the Trusted Housesitters community and we couldn’t be more thrilled about the concept!
Since you’re researching if the Trusted Housesitters platform is any good, I’m guessing that you already know what housesitting is and that you’re on the fence about getting a membership or not.
Just to make sure: here’s a link to the house sitting guide we wrote before!
This article is a review and ‘how to use’ guide to our favourite house sitting platform. We love this platform so much for a variety of reasons. That’s why we want to inform you about the pros and cons in this extensive Trusted Housesitters Review.
PS. We also have a Trusted House Sitters Discount code for you!
What is house sitting?
It’s all in the name!
House sitting is the act of living in the house of someone else while they go on a vacation or a trip. Most of the time, this also includes taking care of pets and plants.
This concept is not something to take lightly, as the home owner leaves you in charge of their home, so they expect to get it back in the best possible shape!
You’re also in charge of the well being of their pets, so you’re required to be a responsible person.
Home owners usually have a few wishes and demands when it comes to taking care of their property. As a house sitter, you’re expected to do this as good as possible.
Pros of house sitting
- you get an insight in local life by living in a regular house
- you save tons of money on accommodation
- get to know the home owners
- be surrounded by pets and get tons of love in return
- having a home while being on the road
Cons of house sitting
- you’re not as free as when you’re staying in a hotel
- you have to divide your free time between excursions and the pet (Sometimes this can go hand in hand, thinking about a good hike with the dogs)
What is the Trusted Housesitters platform?
Trusted Housesitters is the largest and most popular house sitting website in the world.
The platform is a system to connect home owners with pet sitters. This means that they have no liaison with any of the members and they are not responsible for listings nor sitters.
They just help people to list their home as convenient as possible. And they also help sitters to get as much information about the house sitting assignments as possible as well!
Having said that, they do have one of the very best setups to do so and they have a lot to offer for home owners, as well as pet sitters.
Pros of Trusted Housesitters
Largest house sitting website in the world
This brings a lot of advantages to its users, because it has the most listings and the most pet sitters.
Your chances on finding a sit in this website are better than on the other platforms.
Slick interface
The Trusted Housesitters website looks good and is easy to browse.
It’s very easy to select regions or destinations, select the pets you want to sit, and see the available dates.
They have a grid view, a list view, and a map view, all of which are super convenient to use.
Once you become a member, you get to see much more information about house sits than you do before you sign up. You can see the number of applicants too!
Elaborate profiles
House sitter profiles and home owner profiles are very elaborate and you can add a lot of information to your profile. And you should add as much information as possible!
You get to add your name the way you want people to see it. Then you get a tagline, which is very important too.
Profiles can have tons of images and you get to write a few paragraphs about yourself, about your pet sitting experiences, and motivation to do house sits.
Great security
Trusted Housesitters works with three levels of verification. You get to decide for yourself how far you want to go.
The basic level includes email verification, phone number verification, and the option to include an external reference to endorse your trustworthiness.
The standard level includes an identification document check and the enhanced level includes a criminal background check. You do have to pay to get the enhanced level.
So you can choose to undergo all three security checks. You obviously look more trustworthy if you have a clean criminal record attached to your profile and if your ID documents have been checked.
But I can confirm that endorsement from home owners within the platform works great as well.
Vet Advice Line
As a Trusted Housesitters member, you get unlimited free advice from a team of veterinarians, who are at your disposal 24/7.
So you can contact somebody at all times to ask any questions you have regarding all types of animals. And this service is available during your entire membership, not only during your assignments.
For a lot of pet sitters, this offers peace of mind.
Two-way rating system
Trusted Housesitters work with a two-way rating system.
This means that the home owner can rate the housesitter once an assignment is completed. But the housesitter can also rate the home owner.
This system is very valuable on order to see how other house sitters have experienced their pet sitting job in a certain place. Hor home owners, it’s also valuable, because they can see if the house sitter has done a good job before!
Great customer support
At all times, you can email, call, or chat with a support team with your questions and inquiries. They don’t just advertise it, they actually do it.
The one time I ever needed the help desk, I got my answer super quickly. I used email for this, but if you need to talk to someone immediately, I suggest you try calling or chatting.
Cons of Trusted Housesitters
Loads of users
The fact that the platform has tons of users is an advantage, as well as a disadvantage at times. Especially as a new pet sitter, you might have a difficult time landing your first gig.
As a new house sitter, you don’t have the references and reviews that long time house sitters might have. And everyone loves a house sitter with 30 five-star reviews!
Some assignments are super popular and they can have dozens of applicants already.
It might be easier for new sitters to start out with assignments which have fewer applicants. This way, your chances of getting the gig are way higher.
How does Trusted Housesitters work - Getting your first assignment
Trusted Housesitters is a platform that connects homeowners with pet sitters. So they don’t have any liaison with either home owners or house sitters, but they do have an awesome systems to bring these two categories of users together.
On top of that, they have all the facilities in order to make your house sitting experience as good as it can possibly be.
They provide all the tools needed for successful housesitting arrangements, which loads of other platforms just don’t have (yet).
How it works
First, you need to make a profile. You can do that for free, but with the free account, you won’t be able to get in touch with homeowners. The free account is interesting to see what types of assignments you can expect when you eventually sign up for the paid account.
Step 1 - Getting your Trusted Housesitters membership
Becoming a member of Trustes Housesitters sets you back around 89€.
As we are members ourself, we can offer you a discount with either this link or you can use our 20% Trusted Housesitters discount code: RAF123238
Once you take care of the financial part, you are a full member of the platform for one year. After that year, they will send you an email to renew the service.
Step 2 - Set up your profile
Now that you are a member, you can set up your profile.
You should try to make it stand out. As we mentioned before, there are thousands of other housesitters out there, all competing to get assignments in perfect destinations, just like you.
Step 3 - Search for pet sitting assignments
When you think your profile is perfect and attractive, you can start searching for assignments. You can obviously do that earlier, but I wouldn’t apply for house sits before your profile looks stunning. You want the home owners to be impressed by your profile so they will select you!
Searching the assignments is very straight forward and convenient. You can filter results by date, destination, or pet.
Some of the pet sitting jobs have loads of images and a huge explanation, while others are less informed.
I must admit that we love it more when there are loads of pictures of the house and the pets.
What to look for in assignments
- Establish the type of pet you want to look after
- See if you can easily reach the assignment (do you have a car?)
- Choose dates that fit your schedule
- Check the number of applicants
- Read the entire assignment before applying!
Step 4 - Apply for a house sitting job
When you find the job that fits you like a glove, you can apply for it.
In the sidebar on the right of the website, you can see how many other applicants there are for this specific job. You know that your chances are slim if there are 50 applicants, especially as a new sitter. For your first job, you might want to consider getting an assignment with less applicants.
Then simply press apply!
You can write a motivation letter to accompany the link to your sitter profile. We strongly suggest you take some time to write a decent motivation letter!
What should I write in my motivation letter?
Keep in mind that the home owner will check out your profile as well. Your profile should be as complete as possible. From your profile, it has to be clear that you are a responsible person who can be in charge of a house and the pets that live there.
Now, this motivation letter is specific for this home owner, so you have to measure it to the needs of this specific assignment.
Don’t write generic motivation letters to copy and paste!
- talk about things that are mentioned in the job description
- tell them how cute their pets are
- answer questions they ask in the job description
- respond to concerns that are described in the description
- specify why you want to visit this exact location
- confirm that being with the pet is a priority
- sightseeing is also important! Point out what you like about the destination
- let them know you are available for a video call
Step 5 - Chat, call, or Skype
Loads of home owners want to have a Skype call with the sitter before they agree.
This isn’t always the case, though, but it could very well be!
During this chat, be spontaneous and show them who you are. Be open to answer all their questions and respond to their concerns.
You should be able to nail this talk by just being yourself.
Do take into account all the same tips as mentioned for writing the motivation letter.
Step 6 - Be amazed by all the information you get before the actual sit
After writing a perfect motivation letter, you probably go the job!
Once the home owner accepts you as their pet sitter, you get access to a whole new set of tools in the Trusted Housesitters dashboard.
You can access directions to the assignment and a lot of extra information about the place and the pets. Take your time to click through all the information. It’s best to know as much as possible before getting at the pet sitting assignment.
This way, you can already send your questions via the chat system in the Trusted Housesitters platform.
Step 7 - What to do once your assignment starts
Most home owners invite their sitter before they actually leave. They want to see and meet you in person. Also, they want to show you where to pet food is and how things need to be done.
Pay attention or even make notes!
There is nothing worse than having to contact the home owner the next day because you can’t find the cat food.
Even though you want to keep in touch with the home owner during the assignment, you don’t want it to be for things that have been explained earlier!
Step 8 - Tips for keeping in touch during the assignment
- Send a message or email each day
- Take pictures of you with the pet
- Let the home owner know that everything is fine
What if something goes wrong?
The pet gets ill
It can happen that the pet becomes ill during your pet sitting job.
The home owner normally leaves you the address of their usual vet. You can either get in touch with their regular vet.
Trusted Housesitters also has a 24/7 vet emergency line. You can call them or chat with them anytime. I recommend doing this first.
If you really need a vet present quickly, call the regular vet and have him/her come over.
Get in touch with the home owner and let them know what’s going on as soon as possible.
You break something
If you can fix it, fix it or replace it and let the home owner know what happened!
If you can’t fix it, also let the home owner know what happened. They will help you find a solution or tell you what to do. It is their house after all, so their rules count.
It’s also a good idea to get in touch with the Trusted Housesitters helpdesk. They usually have the best solution for everything. They can help you get the best possible way out while still keeping a great relationship and contact with the home owner.
How to make sure you get good reviews?
Trusted Housesitters works with a review system for their users. This system works pretty well and it shows you if home owners and pet sitters ended things friendly or not.
Home owners, as well as, house sitters get to review the other. This way, both parties can make a decision whether they want to collaborate with the other user, based on reviews as well.
Getting good reviews is based on how things went with the home owners, so if you ended up leaving a mess or something weird happened, you might get a negative review.
The best way to get good reviews is to treat people the way you would want be be treated. Don’t worry about going a little further. We once left a bottle of wine for the home owners and I’m sure they didn’t mind!
Just be a good house sitter and you’ll get reviews that match your style!
Conclusion - Trusted housesitters review
In conclusion, we think that Trusted Housesitters is the best platform for housesitting all over the world.
They have assignments on all continents and their platform is simply amazing.
Also, the customer service rocks and we couldn’t find any flaws in their modus operandus, so you’re pretty safe to choose this platform.
The only downside you might encounter, is that it can be difficult to land your first few assignments as there are thousands of users on the platform, all of which have more 5 star reviews than you probably do when you start out.
To avoid that: start by applying for jobs in less popular cities and areas, where fewer applicants have already applied.
Once you build up some trust with positive reviews, it will be easier to land jobs in popular cities as well.
We hope you found this review useful and if you did, please let us know in the comment section below!
Happy housesitting!
