How Does Trusted Housesitters Work? – The Entire Process

Trusted Housesitters is a site I found by chance one day whilst watching a random youtube vlog. It was so long ago that I can’t for the life of me even remember which or whose vlog it was. But I am SO thankful that I found it!! So how does Trusted Housesitters work? This post will explain the process from start to finish!

After verifying that the site was legit, I stalked it for a couple years before investing in a membership. This was mostly down to one of the requirements being that you must be 21 and I wasn’t at the time, plus I was still at uni so wouldn’t get much use out of the membership.

But by seeing the thousands of wonderful listings on the site, a plan started to form – could I use housesitting to travel for a year on a budget? Well one year later, I confidently say HELL YES YOU CAN!! Since taking the plunge and joining the site back in June 2022, I have housesat 17 times totalling 159 nights in 4 different countries, taking care of 32 wonderful pets.

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So what the hell is housesitting?

Housesitting is where you look after someone else’s home whilst they are away. You essentially move into the home and take care of the place. Most of the time a housesitter is needed because the home owners have pets. Therefore, the primary reason you are there is to look after the pets.

Can anyone do it?

Yes and no! Trusted Housesitters do have an age limit, you have to be 21 to apply for housesits on the site. And there’s really is no point housesitting if you don’t like/have no experience caring for pets. The whole reason this site works so well is because the people on the site genuinely love and care for animals and the hosts have an open mind to welcome a stranger into their home. But if you tick both of those boxes then yes you can absolutely join Trusted Housesitters and start your own housesitting adventure!

Is it free?

So whilst you don’t pay the homeowners to stay in their house, they also don’t pay you for doing it. Therefore, in that way it is free BUT if you use a site, like Trusted Housesitters, you have to pay a membership fee to use the site. This is a one-off annual fee that let’s you apply to unlimited sits globally, provides liability insurance and gives you 24/7 access to a vet. Trusted Housesitters offer three different membership levels and essentially the higher level you are the more you pay but it comes with more benefits.

I started with a standard membership which is around £129 per year (or £96.75 if you use code JESS25 to get 25% off 🥳) and then upgraded to the premium membership a couple of months later to access the cancellation insurance. Bonus that the premium membership comes with two airport lounge passes that I made full use of!!

Ok but how does Trusted Housesitters work?

There are two ways you can get a housesit on the site.

1. You apply to a listed sit and get chosen
2. A pet owner directly invites you to a sit

The first one is more common but the second one is possible and becomes more likely once you have already done a housesit for the owner.

But as the first one is how you will most likely use the site let’s break the process down.

1. Applying to a listed sit

When you click “find a housesit” you will see all the available sits listed. You can filter these down by location, dates or type of pets. If you click on the listing, you will be able to view more photos of the pets/home and read about the home owners, pets and responsibilities. If all of this still interests you and you can commit to the dates, it’s time to apply.

The application process sounds daunting but it literally just consists of sending the home owner a message expressing your interest. You can write as little or as much as you like. Obviously the more detail and personalisation you put into your application the better. This way you will stand out amongst other applicants.

Trusted Housesitters recently changed the application process and now cap applications at five per sit. This change has it’s pros and cons. Pro: there is less competition and more chance the homeowner will see your message. Con: possibility that sits in popular locations (NYC for instance) will close to applicants minutes after it’s been posted.

This is where saved searches come in! Trusted Housesitters allows you to create saved searches, based on dates and locations. You will then get notified the moment a sit matching your criteria goes live. This way you can be one of the first to apply without having to be on the site 24/7.

Right so I’ve applied now what?

Now you wait. Unfortuately, due to the nature of the site (i.e. dealing with real people) you will probably not hear back from the vast majority of sits you apply for. Sometimes you will hear back within minutes, or days or you’ll just get declined without a reason and sometimes you won’t hear anything at all. It is very hard to call!

This is why making your profile and application message stand out is so important! Pet owners LOVE seeing your reviews! But as a newbie you won’t have any Trusted Housesitters reviews so make sure you add character references to your profile. Also make sure your message is not a copy & paste. Show the pet owner that you have actually read the sit listing and that you are genuinely interested in sitting for them. Maybe reference something in your message from their profile or comment on something within the pictures.

One thing that I had to remind myself of at the start was not to take it personally. When I started using the site, the applications were not capped meaning sometimes I was one of 50+ applicants! Just thinking of getting that many messages in a few days is overwhelming, I can’t even imagine trying to read and respond to all of them. So no wonder I was getting ghosted most of the time. Trick the odds into being in your favour and apply to as many as you can! Within my first week on the site, I applied to almost 50 housesits just to get the ball rolling.

Now fingers crossed you get a response!

The most common response if the homeowner is interested in you will be them asking to video call. This is a non-negotiable for me! I always always always video call with the pet owners to make sure it’s a right fit.

You get on like a house on fire…

You’ll know minutes into the video call whether the sit is a good fit for you and the pet owners will be able to make the same decision. If you both decide it’s a good fit and you’re their favourite applicant the next step is for them to officially offer you the sit on the site. You can then accept or decline the invitation. Once you accept this will then show in your profile as a confirmed sit! Congratulations you are officially a housesitter 🥳

Now as I mentioned about a thousand words ago there is a second way to land housesits on Trusted Housesitters…

2. You get invited to a housesit

This way is more common if you have a tonne of good reviews or a past housesit invites you back. You will receive a sit invitation which you can accept or decline. You’ll also have the chance to check out the sit profile and message the pet owner before you make your decision.

So there you go, hopefully I’ve answered the question how does Trusted Housesitters work and showed you the two ways you can land housesits on Trusted Housesitters.

The site is very easy to navigate and they have an app too. But honestly I find the app buggy and kinda hard to use to apply for sits but absolutely fine for responding to messages and to access your sit documents.

So now you know how does Trusted Housesitters works, are you gonna give it a go? Make sure to use the code JESS25 to get 25% off the membership!