Anonymous wrote:Rover.com our sitter charges $17 for drop in visits and $50 overnight for one animal.

I hope you tip very very well. After Rover's 20%, that's obscenely cheap.

Rover.com our sitter charges $17 for drop in visits and $50 overnight for one animal.

So what would I pay an overnight housesitter for two dogs who are little hassles - they will likely keep sitter up the first night and are generally a handful. One is a Jack-doxy female mix - enough said?

She is a trusted college student. We want to pay her enough to make up for the challenging dog personalities, and we hope she’ll sit for us in the future. We don’t go away much because of the dogs. Boarding situations haven’t been the right fit. It will be 5 days. $300/day? More? Our expectations is she’ll is she’ll be around a lot during the day, though she can crate them and go out for chunks of time.

Get a subscription to trusted house sitters. Much more value in that.

I have 2 dogs and a cat.

We use the service that we use for dog walking. They do get paid for hours while "sleeping," the service would run into labor law issues if they didn't get at least minimum wage for all of the hours the employees are there.

They charge:

8:30 pm to 6:30 am $155 per night
6:30 pm to 6:30am $174 per night

There is an additional charge to add a walk during the day.

A friend of mine charges $45 per night for the same kind of service, although she stays at your house pretty much any time she isn't at work. She does work from home some days so on those days I don't need to hire the walkers for the mid day walk. For my friend pet sitting is a side gig. I don't think she is on Rover, she just gets a lot of gigs from people at our church. Because I pay so much more to the pet service and she charges so much less, I actually insist on paying her more. But her rate is $45 per night. At least it was like a year ago.

I know the petcare service I mention above sounds very expensive, but when my friend isn't available I hire them and am happy to do so because I know the business well -- they have been my dog walker for years, they communicate with me perfectly, they already have keys, my dogs know the sitter (he is their backup dog walker) and I trust them. I do not trust a random person from Rover (I've heard too many horror stories of people not showing up, etc.). And as far as boarding goes, my pets take it very hard (well, one dog takes it fine, but my other dog who spent the first part of her life having babies in a cage in puppy mills is not fine with being kenneled and the last time I boarded my cat he was so upset he stopped eating), and, once I pay for all three pets for boarding -- it's even more expensive than the overnights from the pet service.

Anonymous wrote:I’ve paid HS age teens and college freshman age $60 per night for 2 dogs.
They sleep at my house then walk the dogs for 10 mins in the morning/give breakfast and go to their day job or to school. Back to my house around 4 give the dogs dinner and another short walk and hang out until they go to bed. They’re allowed friends over ( no parties), can use WiFi, streaming etc.. we get food they ask for too.
$300 for 5 nights is a good deal just to be at our house. It’s easy money. Otherwise they’d be at their parents.

That’s not a good deal given the hours.

I’ve paid HS age teens and college freshman age $60 per night for 2 dogs.
They sleep at my house then walk the dogs for 10 mins in the morning/give breakfast and go to their day job or to school. Back to my house around 4 give the dogs dinner and another short walk and hang out until they go to bed. They’re allowed friends over ( no parties), can use WiFi, streaming etc.. we get food they ask for too.
$300 for 5 nights is a good deal just to be at our house. It’s easy money. Otherwise they’d be at their parents.

I pay $135/night for overnights for my sitter who is bonded and insured.

My walker charges $110/ day to come 4x, walk and feed the dogs, bring in mail and packages, water plants, etc.

My sitters are $60-80/day.

NWDC

I would never trust a stranger to stay in my house. I send my dog, rodent and bird to sitters in their own homes. The bird needs a specially-trained person.

If you're house-sitting to water the plants, take in mail/packages, care for pets, make sure the house looks lived-in, because there are imperatives beyond just dog-sitting... then I suppose it makes sense. But my friend who hired a house-sitter ended up with thousands of dollars in repairs because the sitter flooded the upstairs bathtub and water dripped down onto the main floor.

My walker charges $120 for overnights. I use a rover sitter and bring my dog to her house. I think you get better care when you aren't forcing someone to stay in your home.