I’d planned to spend the summer in Seattle at the same place I did last year. It was a cozy studio directly across the street from Pike’s market. In just two minutes, I could be shopping at my favorite fruit and vegetable stand or picking up my mail at Wanderers’ mail service. Bus and light rail service was only two blocks away which gave me easy access to the entire city. But none of that was to be had this summer. 

When I went to rent my apartment through the property management company I used previously, I found that they had pulled up roots and left Seattle. They’d been an ideal company as they offered fully furnished modern units with all utilities included, and you could rent by the day, week, or month. Their properties were particularly well located close to the best attractions in the city. Without them as an option, I turned to AirBnB, but apparently rents had jumped again this year.

Granted, I was spoiled when I moved to Seattle during the first summer of Covid. The management company was happy to rent me a place with a view of the Space Needle for $1400/mo. The second summer, with Seattle opening up but Covid fears still lingering, I was able to get the unit at Pike’s place for $2000/mo, but this summer when I looked at places to rent downtown, the price of a studio had gone to $3000/mo. Even splitting that cost seemed too much for me and my new travel partner.

We resigned ourselves to renting a room in Portland with a friend I’ve stayed with for years. We weren’t excited about going back to Portland, a place we both felt we’d outgrown. It was kind of like going back to live with your parents to save money, but as any of you know, that savings comes with a cost. We’d also become disenchanted with Portland since its fall from grace.

On a whim, I checked out the Trusted Housesitters website, a service I’d used in the past. It connects people who need pet sitters to stay in their homes while they’re away with people who need places to stay. If you’ve ever boarded a pet, you know it requires its own category for your vacation budget, and you never know how your pet is going to be cared for. With a house sitter, the only cost is letting someone stay in your house, which is also the benefit since you have someone to stay with your beloved family member.

We picked a good summer to start house sitting as everyone was pent up from Covid and looking to travel. That meant a shortage of house sitters, and I had a couple strategies of my own to increase the odds of getting chosen for a sit: Knowledge of pet needs, breed aversion, and location desirability.

First of all, I figured most people prefer to pet sit for a cat. In general, they come across as a lot less maintenance than a dog. It’s certainly easier to take off for a day to explore with a cat than it is with a dog. Litter boxes and self feeders make this easy. I will add that, while it’s easy to leave a cat during the day, it can be hard to get them to leave you alone at night, since they are nocturnal creatures. Nonetheless, I think most people prefer the ease of cat care so I filtered my search to house sits with dogs.

The next criteria I tried to use to my advantage was breed. I love big dogs, especially pit bulls, rottweilers, and other dogs perceived as dangerous. Anyone who’s had one of these dogs knows what an egregious misconception that is. Most pit bulls are more likely to lick you to death, and the biggest risk is the dog knocking your laptop off the table with their powerful tail, but who am I to correct people if it means more opportunity for me? I looked for housesits with multiple big dogs, and with two of us, it would be easier to share the responsibility.

One of the nice features of Trusted House sitters is that you can see how many people have applied for an available house sit. If I see more than four applicants, I generally pass on applying for it. I go after the sits that have 0-3 applicants. As you can imagine, most people want to pet sit in the most desirable areas of the most popular cities. So my first strategy is to pick areas perceived as less desirable. Knowing Seattle well, I knew that the neighborhood I was focused on was an easy ferry ride to Seattle, even though on a map, it appeared to be outside the city.

I continued this strategy for other sits around Puget Sound, choosing places people probably never heard of but I knew were adorable, like Coupeville, on Whidbey island. Not only is it a lovely location, it’s not that far from Seattle if you want to visit the city.

The place I focused on this summer, however, was west Seattle. By the end of my efforts, I had three back to back house sits within a couple miles of each other. Being so close to Seattle, I decided to call my former employer, ShowMeSeattle tours. I shared with them that I’d be in the city for a few weeks if they needed me to fill in on any tours. A couple days later, they had me on the schedule working four days a week.

Additionally, I reached out to a company called TravelCurious. It’s a web service that connects tourists with locals. Since I’d started a walking tour Meetup for locals in Seattle, I figured I had enough material to escort out of towners on a tour of Pike’s place and the Waterfront. A short interview with someone at TravelCurious, and I was on their list of local guides.

I was able to pick up a couple tours a week, and they paid $125 each so it was a nice easy gig. Only once did I invest the entire 2.5 hours expected for the tour. Most people are unaware of the hilly landscape of downtown Seattle and opted to take an Uber after about an hour of walking. Between these and the ShowMeSeattle tours, I was busy almost every day. Fortunately, Joan could stay home with the animals while I was on tour.

We ended up sitting for a variety of animals. In fact, on the second of our sits, the people ended up deciding to take the dog with them, leaving behind a cat, a hamster, two guinea pigs, and a python to care for. These were all fairly low maintenance, and we were able to enjoy day trips around Seattle when we weren’t working.

We’ve been able to fill the summer with house sits, and it’s looking like we may spend barely a week in Portland. Not only did we avoid paying $3000/mo for an apartment in Seattle, I was able to make money by working while we house sat.

This week we headed to the San Francisco bay area for my family reunion so I thought I’d look up any house sits while we are down here. It turns out we’ve got one just outside the City, and while it doesn’t appear on a map to be close, it is just a ferry ride away.

With a whole summer’s worth of references and experiences, we’re looking to apply for international house sits as we travel this winter. I’m imagining sitting on a porch overlooking the Mediterranean with a dog curled up in my lap all for the cost of free. Maybe I’ll see if I can lead walking tours of the Greek islands!