House-sitting now a professional gig By the numbers
Kim Jury had been casually for about before she turned fulltime job.
She has been paid to house-sit since February last year, while hardly ever spending time in her own home and demand was growing.
Jury’s experience reflects a growing preference by homeowners to host short-term strangers through Airbnb or house-sitting, instead of neighbours, due to a loss of community.
However, the insurance industry warns that policyholders might be unknowingly compromising their cover.
‘‘I get a lot of inquiries; I turn down work,’’ Jury said. ‘‘It’s got to suit me as well, and because I charge, some people don’t want to pay.’’
She thought the modern lack of connection in neighbourhoods had a part to play in the rise in demand.
‘‘We don’t know our neighbours to have them pop over and feed the cat and get the mail anymore.’’
Jury has her own home in New Plymouth, but enjoys moving around. house-sitting three years it into her
‘‘I’ve just got stuff in the boot and buy some groceries on the way. I had to go and visit my house and check it was okay because it was so long since I’d been there, and we’d had a lot of rain.’’
AMI New Plymouth branch manager Nadine Paterson said policies might need updating.
‘‘There’s a difference between having a good friend or relative house-sit for you who you really know well, compared with shortterm stay customers or professional house-sitters who you don’t really know,’’ she said.
‘‘So it really pays to do good background checks before others into your home.
‘‘Most insurers have requirements for these background checks to be completed as part of taking reasonable steps to protect your home from loss or damage.’’
Homeowners were advised to take valuable items with them, as most insurance policies don’t cover invited guests.
Paterson recommended contacting the insurer before departure, in case special conditions had to be met.
Tauranga-based
Davies and Zara letting couple Gary Lynch are in someone else’s house ‘‘basically all of the time’’.
‘‘We enjoy it. It’s an life,’’ Davies said.
‘‘It seems like more often than not we’re having to turn people down. We certainly get the sense there’s more and more of us doing it.’’
They ‘‘whittled down’’ their belongings after they started house-sitting, leaving seasonal changes of clothes in storage.
‘‘Everything we take around fits in our station wagon,’’ Lynch said.
Aimee Baldwin of New Plymouth interesting spent about four years housesitting in Melbourne before running a Taranaki business that connected homeowners with housesitters.
‘‘Rather than doing it for free, now people are actually charging for it, and people are wanting to leave their pets at home as well,’’ she said.
She said the practice was growing, but not as fast as it might have without cheaper options such as Airbnb and home swaps.
‘‘You’ve got to still have a friend who’s happy to have you on their couch in between.’’