House-Sitting in Shrewsbury

Back in 2017 we had our first house-sitting experience with Trusted Housesitters. We spent six weeks in a beautiful villa over-looking the Andalusian town of Valle de Abdalajís in Spain. We were there looking after the home owner’s three dogs, as well as re-writing our Motorhome Morocco guidebook, having just finished three months touring the country. Feedback we received from the home owner, after the sit, told us that house-sitters aren’t as welcomed if they have their own dog with them, so we shelved the idea to do any more house-sits and let our subscription lapse. 

Charlie passed away in June 2018, leaving a massive hole in our lives. We so easily could have gone out straight away and got another dog, but we made ourselves promise to wait a year. The wait would give us time to let the grief subside and to work out what we want to do with our lives. We still haven’t managed to figure out the latter part, but without the fog of grief clouding our judgement, we both now realise that we aren’t ready for the ten to fifteen years of commitment required to be a pooch parent. We still miss the fun and love that dogs bring to our lives though, so we renewed our subscription with trustedhousesitters.com and set about finding a suitable poochy fix.

How Does House-Sitting Work?

The first question we got asked by folks while house sitting was about money. Do you do this for a living? Is this your job? Do you get paid for this? I believe on some sites you do get a small income while you house or pet sit. On the site we use we get a free place to stay (and lots of pooch love) in return for looking after the pets and house, no money changes hands. 

Once we’d renewed our subscription, we were then able to see the details of the house sits available. As it was August and the school holidays were in full swing, there were loads of options. We found a couple of sits that ticked the right boxes for us – location (somewhere we haven’t been before), pet sitting requirements (a pooch or three) and good reviews from previous sitters (and by the owner) and applied by sending a message through the site. The message would be accompanied by our house-sitting profile which we set this up when we joined, which includes references and background checks. We’d updated our profile details as Charlie is no longer with us and within a couple of days we heard back from a couple in Shrewsbury. Our first UK house-sit was agreed. Over the next few weeks, we were provided with an online information pack telling us about the house, the area – shops and good dog friendly places to eat, the dogs’ needs and loads of other stuff. After reading the pack we arranged to arrive the day before the sit and spend some time getting to know the owners, see the dogs’ routine and test out a couple of their favourite walks.  

During the sit we kept in touch with the home owners through WhatsApp, enabling us to send photo updates (like the one above) giving them peace of mind that everything and everyone was OK. We were told that the dogs were OK to be left alone for a few hours at a time, but we tended to take them with us as a lot of the time as we were simply out walking and exploring the area. However, on Saturday morning they had an extra early dog walk so we could leave them while we took part in the Shrewsbury Parkrun. These free timed 5 km run/walk events take places all over the place, we’ve run one in Paris and at the Eden Project in Cornwall, and are a great way to meet folks and see the local area.

The rest of our week house-sitting was spent exploring Shrewsbury town centre as it was within walking distance, and going further afield in the car to explore the surrounding countryside. The dogs also got walked each morning and evening for at least 40 minutes, so by the end of the week we were ready for a rest. We’d forgotten how much time, love and shoe leather you need to put in to keeping a dog, especially a young dog, happy.

Our Verdict

We think house sits are a great win-win situation. We get to explore part of the country we haven’t been to before, and stay in a home with everything we need for free (we just buy our own food). In return the home-owners can leave their furry family members in familiar surroundings and don’t have to put them into kennels (something we never did with Charlie, so we know how difficult it could be to go anywhere without him). The pets are less stressed this way, and the home-owners know they are being well looked after and loved.

Fancy Giving It A Go?

If you fancy trying house-sitting yourself, or have a home or pets you want looked after, the link below will will take you to the Trusted HouseSitters website that we use, where you can find loads more information. If you use our discount code RAF59601 when you pay to join, you’ll get 25% off the annual fee, and we’ll get a further couple of months added to our membership – another win win!

Trusted House Sitters