Adventures in Housesitting

Welcome to the new Housesitting category on my blog and its first post, Adventures in Housesitting.

When I was younger I did a lot of housesitting. Mostly friends of my parents who were going on vacation and wanted a responsible person to live in their house and make it look lived in. And also take care of any pets, if they had any.

As I begin preparations to retire and become a nomad, one of the things I can do to keep my costs down is do some housesitting. Because of course, paying for accommodations are the biggest expense everyone faces.

This is an expense I might be able to offset because I’m open to housesitting just about anywhere. However, my personal safety is of utmost importance. I draw the line at housesitting in countries that are at war, have unstable governments, or disregard basic human rights.

Here’s one of my adventures in housesitting.

Mr. Trapp’s housesit

An old friend of my parent’s, Mr. Trapp, lived in Langley, BC, about 30 miles from Vancouver. I stayed there a few times while he went on vacation. He was a single man who lived in a nice rancher overlooking a forest and ravine. It was a sprawling house with a huge kitchen and living room, but there was only one bedroom. That’s obviously where I slept when I was housesitting.

I’m not the tidiest person around. When I get undressed for bed, my clothes stay wherever they land on the floor. The next day when I get home from work, I might pull on my jeans and T-shirt if they’re still clean enough to wear, or put them in the laundry.

In the morning, I’m usually in a big rush to get to work. Making the bed is not a high priority. Or at least not when I was younger!

I arrived home from work one day. Everything seemed normal. I unlocked the door to Mr. Trapp’s house, went inside, and surprise, surprise.

Who’s been here?

I went into the bedroom to change out of my work clothes and get into my jeans.

The first thing I noticed was the bed was made!

Uhhhh…. how did that happen? I’m going over in my head did I make the bed and I’m pretty sure I did not.

Did the bed fairy show up? Someone took great care making the bed a whole lot neater than I would have.

The next thing I notice is that my clothes have been picked up off the floor and neatly folded on the chair in the bedroom.

Including my underwear.

Oh boy! What is happening? The fact that someone folded up yesterday’s underwear is creepy, creepy.

And are they still in the house?

Oops!

I looked around the house to see what else is not how I left it. On the kitchen counter, I found a checklist from a maid service for everything they did that day.

Mystery solved!

Mr. Trapp had forgotten to cancel his maid service. I recognized the name, Molly Maid, a well known cleaning service with locations across North America.

Fortunately the rest of the house was in good shape. I’m one person and don’t create a big mess. I wash my dishes before going to bed, or put them in the dishwasher, so nothing is left out in the kitchen.

I told my parents and they thought it was pretty funny. They said the cleaners probably thought Mr. Trapp had found a sweet young thing to keep him company in bed.

That put me on notice. I was unsure if they were coming back the same day the following week, so I made the bed and picked up my clothes!

Sure enough, when I came home from work, there was another checklist left on the counter from the maid service.

Hilarious

When Mr. Trapp returned from vacation three weeks later, I let him know the maid service had been there. Well, actually I left their calling cards/checklist right there on the counter.

I let him know that I was quite surprised when I came home and discovered my clothes had been picked up and the bed made. He laughed and laughed.

Then he said “Well, you sure gave the cleaners something to talk about.”

That’s just one of my adventures in housesitting. More to come!

Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on April 27, 2023.

More reading:

Turning my Travel Dreams into Housesitting Adventures

Arranging Housesitting Positions