Has any one had any thing to do with farm sitting

and or used the farm sitting web site

I think most owners would like to see people for at least six months. We have been on the current property for 18 months and just love it. Owners are looking for people who are honest and reliable who can use their initiative, capable of doing water runs to ensure stock have water. This may involve starting and stopping windmills or pumps. They often require gardens to be maintained and watered and odd jobs done - so being handy with tools is an advantage. You may be asked to help around the yards during shearing or mustering and having competance on motorbike and/or quad bikes is an advantage to help in bringing stock into the yards.

They really need 'eyes on the ground' just for security and to keep an eye on the stock to report any issues to the usually offsite owners. Usually a modest wage is involved commiserate with the work involved and some supply meat or other benefits. Accomodation is usually included.

For example we are looking after 26,000 acres with 7000 sheep plus cattle and only see the owners every couple of weeks or so. Its a lovely lifestyle - alas we will resume travelling early next year but will always return to see our friends here.

John

We usually find our house sitting positions through housecarers.com.au. Our info is kept posted there with our references there & can be viewed anytime by house owners looking for sitters. This site is free for house owners but sitters have to pay an annual fee.

The home owners are offering free accommodation to people who are basically strangers. If it was free to join for the sitters you'd get all kinds of odd people there, and selecting somebody you could trust gets even harder. I'm sure it can be tricky for the sitters to choose homes too.
We've used this site when looking for house sitters, and have met some really nice people, also a few we certainly didnt feel comfortable to have in our home.
Dont forget the home owner is still paying mortgage, electricity, gas, rates etc while the house sitters are there... and it would cost them an arm and a leg to rent our house furnished, so they are getting a good deal in return for watering a few pot-plants and mowing the lawn and turning on the lights at night for security.

Edit... sorry, this is a bit off-topic for farm-sitting where sitters have much more responsibility.

-- Edited by Gerty Dancer on Saturday 6th of October 2012 10:10:17 AM

Gerty Dancer wrote:

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The home owners are offering free accommodation to people who are basically strangers. If it was free to join for the sitters you'd get all kinds of odd people there, and selecting somebody you could trust gets even harder. I'm sure it can be tricky for the sitters to choose homes too.
We've used this site when looking for house sitters, and have met some really nice people, also a few we certainly didnt feel comfortable to have in our home.
Dont forget the home owner is still paying mortgage, electricity, gas, rates etc while the house sitters are there... and it would cost them an arm and a leg to rent our house furnished, so they are getting a good deal in return for watering a few pot-plants and mowing the lawn and turning on the lights at night for security.

Edit... sorry, this is a bit off-topic for farm-sitting where sitters have much more responsibility.

-- Edited by Gerty Dancer on Saturday 6th of October 2012 10:10:17 AM

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 GD, thats another view of the situation, what sticks out here is the house owner owns the house and the house sitter is there for mainly security of the house etc

As you say you sometimes do not know who you will get and some are bad house sitters, we do farm sits and we do not dig any holes 

B-T wrote:

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This post was about "farm sitting" - more commonly called Caretaking, not house sitting

Cheers

John

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 They must all come under the same banner, I would have thought 

GD, sorry I was not having a shot at you, I hope you did not think that,  just pointing out that I thought they were all the same.

As an old friend of mine used to say "fight you buggers we hate peace "

JRH wrote:

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B-T wrote:

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This post was about "farm sitting" - more commonly called Caretaking, not house sitting

Cheers

John

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 Nit pickers unite.  When one does a house sit very often there are animals such as cats, dogs, birds and others to care for and feed so what is different from that to farm sitting apart from the number and size of the animals?

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Not really a case of nit picking.  There is a very real difference bettween looking after large acreages with stock running into thousands compared to looking after someone surburban house and managing a couple of cats or dogs.  It requires a completely different set of skills and abilities - eg one needs to know about looking after stock, run mills and water bores and service them.  Fix fences, move stock and control predators to name but a few.  Were I looking for someone to caretake a large rural property I would not go looking in the house sitting websites. 

Just my opinion.

John