Basics:
TrustedHousesitters connects homeowners with house sitters willing to watch their homes and pets in exchange for free accommodations
Expected pay: None
Husl$core: $$$$$
Commissions & fees: $129 – $319
Where: Nationwide/worldwide
Requirements: None
What is TrustedHousesitters?
TrustedHousesitters is an international housesitting site that helps sitters find free accommodations in exchange for watering the homeowner’s plants and watching their pets. And, it helps homeowners find people to watch their pets for free — in exchange for the free accommodations.
(This post may contain affiliate links. You can read our full affiliate policy here.)
How it works
No matter whether you’re a homeowner or a housesitter, when you sign up with Trusted, you’ll need to pay a membership fee. You choose the level, based on what services you want to have available to you.
You first choose between a “pet parent” or “housesitter” membership — or, for $60 extra, a combined membership, where you can look for sitters or houses to sit.
Basic level subscriptions cost $129 per year; premium level cost $259 per year.
TrustedHousesitter Review:
TrustedHousesitters is our top recommendation out of the many housesitting sites that SideHusl.com reviews. Like the others, Trusted connects homeowners with house and pet sitters, who are willing to work in exchange for free accommodations. And it connects housesitters with homeowners willing to provide free accommodations in exchange for watching their pets.
It’s worth noting that house and pet sitters do not — and often CANNOT — accept pay for these arrangements because many of the house sits this site arranges are international in nature. And most governments do not allow foreigners to work, unless they have a hard-to-get work Visa.
You can get paid for house or pet sitting in your own country. However, if you aim to do that, sign up with Rover, not TrustedHousesitters. Trusted is designed to arrange free housesits with people from around the globe.
Expensive but worth it
Trusted is one of the few housesitting sites that charges homeowners just as much — or more — than it charges pet sitters. (Many other sites let homeowners list for free, presumably to increase the number of houses to sit and encourage pet sitters to sign up.)
At minimum, both sitters and homeowners pay $129 annually for a basic membership here. If you want a combined membership — where you can find both house sitters and available sitting jobs — it’s a minimum of $189.
Premium memberships cost as much as $319 (combined membership).
But, if you think you would want to both housesit around the world — and have other people watch your pets at home — this combined premium membership is what we recommend. Why? The value you get is well worth the cost.
Those who don’t have a house of their own, but want free accommodations for their trips, are well served with the premium sitter membership ($259) for the same reason. This site gives you real value for the price.
What you get
Here’s why: While most sites’ membership fees simply get you access to housesits or sitters, Trusted’s premium membership provides a variety of invaluable bells and whistles. These include:
- a background check for all sitters
- insurance for theft, and unintentional damage to your (or the homeowner’s) goods
- liability protection, just in case a sitter gets hurt at your house.
- phone consultations with a vet for you and your sitter
- 2 global airport lounge passes
- and “sit cancellation protection”
What is “sit cancellation protection”? If you are planning to housesit for someone, but the homeowner suddenly decides to withdraw, you get compensated for up to 10 days in a hotel ($150 per night) per sit.
For anyone who housesits regularly, this protection gives you peace of mind that you won’t be scrambling to find accommodations at the last minute.
Other selling points
Moreover, Trusted draws many times the web traffic of all the other housesitting sites combined.
To be specific, where Nomador drew about 250,000 page views in April of 2021; TrustedHousesitters drew 780,000. The additional traffic increases the chance that you’ll find a house sitter — or a house to sit.
Positive reviews
And reviews of this site are also overwhelmingly positive — possibly because TrustedHousesitters can afford good customer service.
You can sign up to housesit or list your house here.
Recommendations
TrustedHousesitters is our top recommendation in the housesitting space. However, there are other good sites, including Nomador and and HouseCarers. Both are less expensive for homeowners, but only modestly less expensive for house sitters. If you plan to travel for more than a few weeks a year, we think the additional value you get from Trusted is well worth the cost. You can sign up with Trusted here.
What their users say (from TrustPilot):
Another great experience with our petsitter from Trustedhousesitters.com. Using this site and its great petsitters has really changed our vacations for the better. We have so much more peace of mind leaving our 4 cats in great care at the comfort of our home. Kitties are happy and well cared for and we can relax and enjoy our vacations! Highly recommend!
Lynda & Chris were a lovely couple with a beautiful house and property. Yogi is a sweetheart and full of cuddles, the girls (the chickens) full of character. This was our first experience looking after chickens but they were easy, taking themselves to bed. We just had to close the door to the coop.
TrustedHousesitters has been a great experience for us so far! We got two rescue dogs a year ago. One seemed to have ptsd, and couldn’t be left at a kennel or with just anyone, so we hadn’t really gotten away in a year. I took great care to look through sitter reviews, and to get a feel on FaceTime for the woman we eventually chose. What a difference it makes to find true animal people. Also, the two times I needed help from THS customer service, they were quick to respond, true animal lovers, organized and professional.
Updated 1/24/2024
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