Summer Sit-In

How to Find Someone to Stay While You Get Away

A good vacation means escape from the routine, and from routine concerns. But who can relax with mail stacking up outside the door, shrubs shriveling from lack of water, hamburger moldering in the freezer after a summer storm knocks out power?

Enter the helpful housesitter: maybe a friend, neighbor or co-worker, or someone personally recommended by one of them. Or maybe a stranger found through a church bulletin board, the community paper, a neighborhood list serve or an Internet matching service.

The arrangements homeowners make in this high season for housesitting can be as quick and casual as jotting a few notes, leaving phone numbers and handing over the keys. Or they can include written contracts and security deposits. Whatever the specifics, there are basic steps needed to ensure the experience is pleasant for both sitter and homeowner.

Becky Zonies, 24, of College Park favors a casual approach to her occasional housesits for friends and family members. Zonies, internship coordinator at the University of Maryland Career Center and house director of a sorority at the university, doesn't charge for her brief stints, which seldom exceed a few days. "It's more like a favor," Zonies said. "But often friends will leave the refrigerator stocked with some goodies, and I've gotten trinkets from their trips."

Amanda Righi is a project manager for a Washington consulting firm who housesits for co-workers or their friends, often for two- to four-week stretches. The 27-year-old Righi also keeps her arrangements informal, and usually charges about $10 a day -- enough to cover the cost of commuting from work to wherever she is housesitting. Until recently, Righi shared a Washington house with four roommates. "To stay in a nice house with a nice yard," she said, "is part of the compensation. . . . Being alone, having more privacy, is a big draw."

Army National Guard Master Sgt. Donna Gregor is on the more formal side of the housesitting scale. Gregor relies on a series of sitting arrangements, running from a few weeks to many months, to provide her a place to live. "I'm a single parent with two kids in college," Gregor said. "I'm saving money to pay off my sons' tuitions."

She generally does not charge a fee -- her compensation is the money she saves from not having housing costs -- but insists on a written contract. She also provides a security deposit, and says homeowners should not be embarrassed to ask for one. "If the person is responsible, it should not be a problem," says Gregor. "Someone could cart all your possessions away."

Gregor gets many sits from word of mouth, sometimes from deployed guardsmen who do not want to leave their houses or apartments vacant. She also has made arrangements through HouseCarers.com, an online source that matches homeowners and housesitters.

Ian White is founder and owner of the five-year-old, Australia-based HouseCarers.com. He said sitters include "retired people, travelers, writers, people checking out an area before committing to purchase." His site's basic advice for finding the right person to entrust with your home: "Provide a clear explanation for your expectations and required tasks" and "follow your intuition."

Check references

Before leaving the keys with a relative stranger, do a little background checking. A face-to-face interview plus calls to a potential sitter's friends and former housesit homeowners are basic.

Gregor, who often stays for long periods, encourages homeowners to check driving and credit records, and do a criminal background check. She makes a point of doing a background check on the homeowner. "I want to make sure they are really the owners, that there is no illegal activity at the house, that it's not a party spot . . . the person could be subletting from someone else."

HouseCarers.com does not do background checks but offers advice about choosing a sitter, tips on working out arrangements, and sample written agreements.