Experienced, retired, house sitting couple. Non-smokers. Available now to look after your precious pets and home.
Here's the links to our house sits so far:
Bourganeuf, Limousin: 15 - 21 May 2018
Maesycrugiau, Carmarthenshire: 3 - 14 August 2017
Callington, Cornwall: 3 - 12 July 2017
Penmon, Isle of Anglesey: 8 - 12 June 2017
Glyn Ceiriog: 10 - 12 June 2016
Carmarthen: 24 - 28 March 2016
Whitegate, Cheshire: 3 - 6 April 2015
We look forward to having the opportunity to house-sit for you. Please do contact us
if you have any questions.
Bourganeuf, Limousin: 15 - 21 May 2018
Maesycrugiau, Carmarthenshire: 3 - 14 August 2017
Callington, Cornwall: 3 - 12 July 2017
Penmon, Isle of Anglesey: 8 - 12 June 2017
Glyn Ceiriog: 10 - 12 June 2016
Carmarthen: 24 - 28 March 2016
Whitegate, Cheshire: 3 - 6 April 2015
About Us
We’re a retired, fit and active couple who would relish the opportunity to look after your
pets and home. We’ve been married for over 30 years and have two grown-up children.
We’ve travelled widely and lived in rented and our own homes both abroad and in various
regions in the UK.
We have experience of looking after pets and animals, including those with medical or
special dietary needs. We can assure you’ll they’ll have plenty of attention and
company during your absence.
Cathy has worked as domestic cleaner and was a trusted key-holder for many
home-owning clients. She has also worked for a motorhome hire business and in
retail so has lots of experience working in other people’s homes and with clients
and customers.
Paul spent most of his working career as a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy.
He loves to cook using local, in season ingredients, so if you’d like to have a meal
ready for when you return, he’d be more than happy to oblige.
We’re both keen gardeners and love the outdoor life. We've built flower and
vegetable plots and have had an allotment; we're keen advocates of growing organically.
We both enjoy walking in the countryside (even better if walking a dog or two!) and Paul's
a keen road cyclist.
If you are interested, we would love to hear from you in order to set up a phone or Skype
call to see if we’re the right fit for you.
Why we want to housesit
We have a thirst for travel and new experiences; having retired early we plan to make
the most of this while we’re fit and able!
House sitting means you have the peace of mind that your pets and home will be loved
and cared for and allows us to travel and live together in different environments.
We have a campervan that we use to travel all over the UK and mainland Europe,
so we’re flexible and mobile. We love this mobile lifestyle but on occasions we like
to have a base, to stay a while longer and become part of the community for a short
time; house sitting provides the opportunity to do this.
As we travel regularly, it’s impractical to have pets at home, so would love the opportunity
to ‘adopt’ your pets as our own for a short while.
House sitting in Europe also gives us the time and opportunity to build on our interest
of learning new languages and living like locals for a short period of time. It also provides
with the flexibility to choose where we live and for how long.
Our experience
If we had to describe ourselves in three words it would be ‘calm, trustworthy,
conscientious’.
We both have valid DBS certificates (police check).
We’re homeowners ourselves and have lived in numerous houses in various
locations over the years, mainly due to Paul’s long career in the Royal Navy. We’ve
also owned a number of homes and rented one of these out for ten years.
So we completely understand how important it is to find honest, trustworthy tenants
who will look after your home as if it’s theirs, even if only for a short house-sitting
assignment. It also means we’re experienced in dealing with all the eventualities
maintaining a home brings.
Over the years we’ve had many pets and have also looked after other people’s dogs, cats,
chickens and fish. This has included some pets with special medical or dietary needs.
We like nothing more than being outside, either walking dogs, feeding and caring for
animals or gardening.
So far we have looked after the following:
Dogs
Cats
Chickens (and newly hatched chicks, including incubator & brooder management)
Geese
Rabbits
Guinea pigs
Pond goldfish
We’re both extremely well organised so we’ll ask you lots of questions during the
handover to make sure we completely understand your needs. We will, of course,
follow your instructions religiously.
We’re also both keen gardeners and have left all our previous homes with immaculate
and well kept gardens; this is something we’ll want to continue, with your permission.
This could be as simple as sweeping up leaves and mowing lawns through to keeping
beds and veg plots weed free or pruning shrubs and trees.
With these useful skills and experience, we’re well qualified and very happy to assist
with running (for example) any form of Gite business during your absence. Or, if selling
your home, we can keep the house and garden neat, clean and tidy ready for viewings.
We sold our last house before the ‘For Sale’ sign even went up - the buyers told us
later it was because the house and garden were immaculate, our tour comprehensive
and we sold them the dream.
Both of us are DBS (CRB) checked. Cathy’s learning Spanish, French, German and
Italian and Paul’s learning French and Spanish (we speak “a little bit” but we’re keen
to improve!), so we’re able to seek basic assistance from local neighbours or
authorities in your absence if required. If that's not enough, as we live on the island of
Anglesey, we're also learning Welsh!
We both have full, clean driving licences so are willing to drop you off or pick up at
airports, train stations etc. Where possible we like to travel with our campervan, which
is 6m (20ft) long, 2m (7ft) wide and 2.6m (8.5 ft) high and our only requirement is
there’s enough space for us to park it off-road. On the positive side, though, this
makes us self-sufficient (our own living space, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen) if space
in your home is limited during the handover period.
If you'd like us to to keep in touch via email, skype or any other means during your
absence, that would be no problem at all. We always respond very promptly to
initial contact from home-owners, so hope this will give you the peace of mind that
we’re professional and can be trusted to look after your precious pets, home and
belongings.
On your return, you’ll find your pets content, your house clean and your garden tidy.
We look forward to having the opportunity to house-sit for you. Please do contact us
if you have any questions.