Keep your empty home safer with resident house-sitters

There is no doubt that an empty home is an invitation for burglars. Resident house-sitters, however, can keep your home much safer. The home-sitters keep your property occupied and maintain a presence. They keep the lights on and the garden looking loved. Selecting experienced and checked sitters to stay in your home to protect your property is a wise and secure choice. It certainly minimises the risk of burglary.

When trying to sell our last home we tried to manage the exchange date as carefully as possible, and yet like many people we found that as the date approached our buyer fell out of the chain because of their buyer and so on. Fortunately our property was in a sought after location and another buyer came along within a couple of weeks.

The tricky part to the exchange, however, was that the new buyer could not move in for five weeks until after our original moving date. And yet we were already committed to moving elsewhere. More to the point the removal men, utilities changeover and various other bookings had already been made. That meant our old house would stand empty for a month.

Someone mentioned housesitters

Needless to say our ecstatic delight at having found a buyer so quickly came crashing down to reality. We suddenly realised the risks of leaving our home empty until the new family could move in. What to do? We were not happy and neither was our insurer. It appeared they would not insure our house if it stood empty for more than four weeks!  So we began to think that resident house-sitters might be our solution.

Our solution came in the form of a friend who said she did housesitting and would house-sit for us until we were ready to hand over the keys to the new owners. Many homeowners, more than you would think, find themselves in this situation in the UK. We are fairly reliant on the chain working smoothly enabling us to hand over keys and access to properties in a synchronised fashion, when in reality it rarely does. Reliable housesitters are far more prevalent than one might at first imagine.

House-sitting was our solution

Resident and Reliable housesitters can prove to be a marvellous solution. They are often people who are happy to move from property to property. They care for homes and pets in the owners absence. And there are online agencies like HouseSit Match that allow you to choose from a range of police checked sitters from across the UK and in establishing a relationship online you can ensure they have the availability and references you would be happy with. We encourage you to find a sitter with the skills to ensure your home is well cared for in you absence. You need to know that your resident house-sitters is comfortable managing the size of lawn or height of hedges in your property to ensure the house and grounds look well cared for once you are no longer there. There is nothing like wildly overgrown garden to give away the owners absence.

An occupied house is less of a risk

In addition to making sure your home is occupied, it is important to make sure looks occupied. Resident house-sitters can be a great help making the appearance of an occupied home. they can keep lights going on and off, demonstrate people walking in and out making it look more naturally occupied. There are additional ways to manage the appearance of your home in your absence. The Royal Mail have a KEEPSAFE SERVICE which you might find useful depending on the length of your absence or indeed if you need to wait to transfer your post to a new location. It only takes five days to set up and the Royal Mail keeps your post for up to 66 days!

HouseSit Match offers a comprehensive online house-sitting service, offering homeowners access to resident house-sitters from across the whole of the UK (and even Australia). The site also allows sitters to highlight the fact that they have a current police check. And they an select which gardening and even pet caring skills they are happy to promote. This makes it easier for homeowners to find the sitter that best matches their requirements.

Lamia Walker
Founder – HouseSit Match

To Register as a House-Sitter yourself for housesitting and pet sitting follow this link HOUSE-SITTER REGISTRATION

To Register as a Homeowner yourself follow this link HOMEOWNER REGISTRATION