172: Nomadic House Sitting with Eden Rudin
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Summary:
Eden Rudin and her husband, Danny, have been nomadic house sitting across the globe for the last 6 years. Eden shares how to get started in house sitting, setting your expectations, and how the industry has changed. She also discusses how Covid has impacted the availability of sits, and the growing ways people are adapting. Eden also took a leap of faith and launched her own house sitting connection website, HouseSit Hawaii, as a way to solve the problem of connecting quality house sitters with home owners in Hawaii. We talk about what she’s learned from that experience and what makes a good house sit platform.
Topics on this episode:
How to get started
Preparing for international travel
Safety concerns
Changes to the house sit community from Covid
Launching HouseSit Hawaii
Main take away: 2020 changed the house sitting community, but there are still opportunities to get started.
About our guest:
It all started on our 3 week honeymoon in Italy and Greece, the travel bug had bit us and we thrilled at the thought of exploring other parts of the world.
Fast forward 6 years later we boarded our first class flights to Belize with our 10 year old dog, 10 suitcases and 2 carry on pieces of luggage, everything we owned was on that flight, as we made our first international move.
13 months later we packed, almost the same items, into a minivan and drove, 26 hours, to our next destination, Granada, Nicaragua to live.
Another 13 months later and we decided to shift gears entirely and house sit full time. No more long term living and having an address of our own. The simple question of ‘where do you live?’ has taken on a very different meaning and always causes us to stumble.
With a variety of house sits under our belt we truly believe this is a lifestyle we are going to enjoy and are excited to be sharing the journey with the world.
So far house (and pet) sitting has taken us places like a Caribbean island with the beautiful sea as our morning view to hillside retreats with both panoramic views of the surrounding volcanoes and the ocean. We’ve even been to exotic locations like Morocco and Egypt.
Links:
Email Eden: info@housesithawaii.com
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, house, pet, hawaii, travel, owners, pay, responsibility, weeks, sitting, expats, sitters, month, set, gift, grenada, big, mexico, dog, live
SPEAKERS
Collin, Eden
00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan
00:18
I'm Collin. And this is pet sitter confessional,
00:21
and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter
Collin 00:25
brought to you by time to pet and pet perennials. The world of housesitting changed last year, but many of the fundamentals still remain the same. It's just navigating that world is a little bit different than it used to be. Today, Eaton Rutan, owner of house at Hawaii, they house it listing platform for, you guessed it, why joins us to discuss her new platform. Why she decided it was time for her to start that what her time as a house sitter has been and some of the takeaways that she loves to share with others. Let's get started.
Eden 00:58
Hi, con. So glad to be here. Yes, absolutely. My husband and I have been full time house sitters. internationally for six years, we're going on seven years soon. And we've been we're completely nomadic, we have two suitcases, that's all we own. Well, that's not true. We have a drawer at my mom's house that we have some stuff in, but we carry our two suitcases. And that's everything we have. That's important to us that we need to have with us. And we I should say pre COVID we go, we go house, we almost always back to back now sitting and we've gone, we've circumnavigated the globe, and I hoping starting in 2021, we're gonna start doing that again. And it's just been a fabulous, fabulous experience for us, we don't get paid. We we do this completely exchange, we pay for our own airfare, our own travel, generally, the owners will pick us up at the airport or the bus stop or something, pay for our own food. But we do have the benefit of the house, taking care of the house, the pets, if there's pets, and all the perks of having a house obviously lectricity not this good thing.
Collin 02:06
Yeah, I hear that and you say, you know, you don't get paid for it. And that is quite a shock to many people to think that you're doing this and not getting paid. So how do you make that work? How does that work for you? And how has that been for the past six years.
Eden 02:20
Um, it's an equal exchange of benefits that we see it as the the, we just feel like, the owners are getting somebody to do something out of their heart, like out of the goodness of them. So we're taking care of the pets, because we actually care about the pet, we care about their home versus renting the space like basically, right? So if they were paying us, then we're worked for them. And it's a different it's like a whole different mindset, like if we if we if in the scope of the house that that we didn't No need to mow the lawn, right was never discussed. And I and let's say they're paying us, then they could be like, Hey, can you mow the lawn? That's the job I want you to do since I'm paying you. Whereas if it's not laid out ahead of time, and they asked us to do that we would perfectly be comfortable saying no, that's really not something we're comfortable with. Right? And so it's just, it's just this, it's just very symbiotic. It's it's a sharing economy. That's best. That's what I call it. Like, that's, that's the best way to describe it. That's the sharing economy. We just everybody benefits and there's just a different it's a different mindset and heart heart, your heartfelt pneus of it's a little bit different.
Collin 03:33
Yeah, it does. It really does take that whole thing and kind of flip it on its head and and really looks at that value exchange between two people and go Okay, yeah, what, what are you getting out of this? What am I getting out of this, we can agree on that. And that means that sometimes it's not going to work for the house for that for the homeowner, right? They may be looking for certain things that doesn't work in a equal value exchange. And for you, it might not work the other way around. So it does take these two special people to kind of meet up and understand exactly what they're looking for.
Eden 04:03
Yeah, yeah. And I think expectations are much clearer when you don't get paid. Versus like I said that expectations to be thrown at you if it was a situation where you are paid. So yeah, they really need to be clear of what what's expected of us and what we expected them way ahead of time or are laid out at least prior to committing right so that their conversation is is is there and and everybody's all the parties are on the same page
Collin 04:29
six years ago, what was the the switch that got flipped that said, You know what, this is what we're gonna do. This is this is
Eden 04:38
it was it was really something we were living in Granada, Nicaragua at the time we were renting we that was our second country. We lived in Belize for a year and then we moved to Granada, Nicaragua, great expat community. Fabulous little town, having a nice time. But Nicaragua was off the beaten path for a lot of travelers. So I started and I had we lived All right, so wait, I knew my favorite cafes and stuff. So I started following Twitter and look for people who were coming to Nicaragua, like travelers like travel bloggers that were coming by Nicaragua for some reason, or they were coming through, on the way to from El Salvador to Costa Rica. And nobody ever talked in Nicaragua. It's like, it just wasn't a big thing. And I would see them and I would talk to them. I'm like, hey, if you guys come to Grenada, I'll take you out for coffee, let's meet, I want to talk about travels, like let's, you know, get to know each other. And I'll show you around town and that kind of stuff. And so we had a group of about six different travelers. Plus, we had actually had some travelers that were staying in Grenada, who I didn't even know about until I looked at Twitter. And met them too. It was crazy. They'd been there for like months renting and they had a travel blog. And I'm like, you're in Grenada? Yeah, well, let's get together. Don't what happened was that a couple of them said, Oh, yeah, we're, we just finished house sitting in Guatemala, or we were on our way to Costa Rica the house that one of those couples had just finished a six month house that in Puerto Rico off one of the islands, and was taking a break before they headed to Greece, the house that on a boat, the yacht, that is what they call it, and they were sitting in Greece. So they came to Nicaragua, like for their month off to just like decompress to take a break, because I came to Grenada when we met, and I'm like, you're going to live on a yacht for four months with a cat, like what they just kept. It was insane. These people stories when they were going to it, and I'm like, I've never heard of this. I didn't even know it existed. And so I started, I went back, you know, when I went back to apartment talking to my husband, I said, you know, what would you think about giving up the apartment and living in other people's space? And he's like, No, I don't want to sleep in somebody else's bed. I don't want to use their kitchen in their kitchen tools. And that's, you know, why would we do that we have a perfectly little place here. Everything's fine. And I'm like, Yeah, but we could travel. He's like, now whatever, you know, just really pushed it off. So like a week later, I started poking around on the websites and started reading the profiles of houses, like in Spain, and France and Italy in different places. And I thought, Okay, he's got to see this. He's got to see what these houses look like, and what's available, and that you can live in somebody else's house for a month at a time. This is fabulous. And he just was like, no. And then, like, three days later, I showed him a picture. And like three days later, he'd be like, really? We could do that. Is that real, though? Like, is that just like one time that ad is there? Yeah. And we missed it. And you're never gonna, like, we're gonna give up a house. I'm gonna be homeless is what he's like thinking like, this is gonna be really scary. And I'm like, No, there's like, 1000s of these, like, all over the world. There's 1000s. And so we started talking to some people to expats in the community. Basically, I kind of put it out to the expats and said, Hey, if you guys want us to come watch your house, we'll do it for free, even in the local area, right? We'll just go see what it's like. And one of the expats on the other side of Nicaragua reached out and she said, Can you come watch our place for five for five weeks when we go back to the state, and we had a dog at the time we had our pet that we'd brought from the US. I said, Can I bring our dog? And she said, Yep, go ahead and bring your dog. And like within nine days, honestly, between that conversation, and nine days later, another friend reached out to us who was in the US and said, I think we're gonna buy the house down the street from you. Could you guys watch it for us? For the five months, because we can't move there till October. And I'm like, What? is fully furnished? They're buying a fully furnished. Yeah. And we could take all of our belongings and obviously store them in the house. Awesome. So that was it. We gave up our apartment, our dog was ready to go over the rainbow. And it was time. So we took care of that. And we started the first house it and then we had a five month one. And between that first 45 days, we were booked out for a year solid. Wow, just wow. It was, um, we we actually had a book, a three week trip to Belize to get some dental work done as our vacation amongst
Collin 09:09
terrible vacation.
Eden 09:11
We had to book time for ourselves, because we were booked absolutely back to back solid. It was Wow, incredible. And it just kept going from then on it just we left Central America and did some other stuff. But it yeah, it just kept going. That's really,
Collin 09:26
really fun. And so if someone's listening to this, they're going well, I'm not already an expat. I'm not living in Grenada, how in the world do I get started? What are some things that I should be thinking about or trying right now if this is interesting to
Eden 09:39
ask, asking friends and family like how's that for other people gold stay in somebody else's house as a guest. Like, not not your aunt because in your family, but I mean, go stay at somebody else's house experienced their house and taking it's a it's a huge responsibility. I'm not gonna lie. It's the end you need Be a responsible person. So you need to understand how important that responsibilities, those four walls have everything that is precious to those people inside of them, whether or not there's pets, their family photos, everything that's precious to those people are inside those walls. And it's your responsibility to take care of that. And that's a big responsibility. So you need to know that you're comfortable with that some people aren't. And obviously, you might know that ahead of time, but you may get in that situation and see, like, there's a bunch of things that can be broken. And that freaks you out. Like, I mean, you know, you have to be okay with lots of different things. But I think asking friends, family to put the word out, and to do it locally, like if you could drive to another town 200 miles away and do it, then that's a great experience like to test it out, test the waters before you commit anything really long term.
Collin 10:49
I know one of the first questions that comes to mind about that is, is like is paying for those expenses is paying for the travel, you know, you're not getting paid for this kind of for sitting the house, but you may still have to pay for food and pay for the travel to get there. does someone need to have a lot in savings or already be retired to make this work for them?
Eden 11:11
No, now we live, where we live on very little. Your travel expenses are big, you're already paying for food. That's the reality, right? You pay for your food, whether it goes in your refrigerator or somebody else's, right, you're paying for your food. So that's one thing, it's really your travel costs that are that are can be obviously burdensome. We I'm one of those people that look for like the best deals constantly. If we know we're going somewhere. But no, if I would say that if he was going to you're testing the waters and you're not getting paid, you need to be able to either you're working remote, which obviously a lot of people are now that can be a benefit to you if you can work at somebody else's facility, or home, even if you did weekend ones, though. Like if you were booked for the next few weekends just to test it. It just I mean, you just have to see again, if you like the not getting paid part because maybe the opportunity for you to get paid is there. And that's something you want to take on. Right. But you you're still in somebody else's space. Yeah, to be able to be comfortable sleeping in their bed, sometimes. It's the only bed. Right? Right, the master bedroom is the only bedroom. So you have to be comfortable sleeping in somebody else's bed and using their pillows. And and I don't know, just it's just all these little weird things that you know, every sometimes we rearrange the furniture around the house that we don't like the way the furniture is laid out in living room will move everything around, we take pictures first we can put it back. But you know, you have to be comfortable it Some people think that? I think in my, my experience, people think that they can do something. And they'll either dive in and then be miserable or happy? Or they just don't do it at all. And they just have it in their head. And if you really do, I really think people should try it. I just, I really think you should just give it a try.
Collin 13:00
Yeah, and that idea of starting local starting with somebody that you may have an immediate connection to to make that transition a little easier. And then grow from there go a little bit further out the next time a little further out the next time, right, because that kind of builds up to this idea of doing this internationally. So you know, how do you prepare for that international jump? What are some things to be thinking about in
Eden 13:22
that process? Your passport? Seriously, I cannot tell you what the conversations have been like we've had this long conversation then just we're like, oh, we don't even have our passports. I'm like, Are you kidding? passport is important. Yeah. And then you have to really know where you want to go. Like, you know, it doesn't have to be full time house sitting in this kind of thing can just be for vacation. But if you want to if you're gonna have a week off work or two weeks off work and you want to go to Spain, you may be able to find a house that in an area that provides a car and you have a dog to look after a cat and you have a house so that's 90% of your expenses for lodging or taking care of right. And so now you just have to get there so having your passport is the biggest one and then deciding where you want to go. What kind of weather you want. That that to us is big. to us. That's a big deal. We do not do cold weather. We are warm weather people. So if there's a place in France and it looks lovely in spring, but the house that is in November, I need to see pictures in November, right? Is it rainy? Is it spongy? Don't be fooled by the picture. See, that's the thing on the house. On the house today websites is the pictures you really do need to always take the pictures when the house is the prettiest right. It's great when the sun's out and it's blue skies and it's beautiful. You'll take pictures of the backyard and the gardens. But heck if you're sitting in October and it's not an official or a made the house is going to look really different or the environments going to be different which could be cold and rainy. Obviously
Collin 14:59
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Collin 15:28
If you are looking for new petsitting software for your business, give time to pet a try. listeners of pet sitter confessional get 50% off their first three months when they sign up at time to pet.com slash confessional image and part of that is understanding like what what you want out of it. Right we started talking about this is this value proposition. So understanding what kind you want out so when you're when you and your husband look at these house, it's you know, you mentioned warm weather. What other kinds of things do you take into consideration
Eden 16:04
Wi Fi? They have to have good Wi Fi warm weather? They need to have outdoor space. So we're not good we don't we're not good like a condo with no patio. Like that wouldn't work for us. Or and pets what kind of pets he's allergic to cat. So we can't do it. We can't do indoor only cats, we can do indoor outdoor cats, but not indoor only cats. So if there's any hindrances like that, also the pets need. I can't give shot. Like not something I can do. So if the pet needs shots three times a day, my husband can do it, but we're not keen on it. So pets need medication. But the weather is really the big and the we don't need a car. Like that's something to consider. If do they provide you a car or not? We've been probably the majority of our sets do not have cars. But what's public transportation? Like? Is there Uber? Is there a bus? Are there taxis? What is that going to cost us? Right? We had one in Costa Rica, we were for three months. And we were two and a half miles from town. But it was straight uphill and downhill. It was $5 each way with the taxi. So you know that that's my cost, right? That's out of my pocket. So we you have that we had to plan our days around. Okay, once a week or twice a week we're going to the store and then when we're at the store, we're gonna go out for lunch. We're not just going to go to town for lunch because that $10 we're adding to the price of lunch which is silly. You know, there's just Yeah, the location weather and then what's the needs of the animals are like what the animals are what their needs are and can we can we handle that so like we like mowing the lawn? Like we're we are what I call this is probably the worst thing I could say on a podcast. But I would call us lazy house that are like we are simple house that hers
Collin 17:56
is simple. It's simple.
Eden 18:00
I'm not I'm not going to law I mean, if you if you need the garden looked after and some weeding done and we're going to be there for two months, then I will do it. But if you need everything tend to do not us. Right if if we don't even this is this is the reality even if there's no pet. Some sets will be like no, there's no pets, but my yard is my baby. But I need you to take care of it. Well, it's not. We're not gardeners like we it's not something that we enjoy doing. So that's not even a set for me. It could be a great place. But nope, I might kill all your plants. I just don't I don't want that responsibility. With a dog or cat. I know how to feed them and take care of them. I forgot to do that with things you have to take in. You just have to know what you're what you like to do. And some people do it for the adventure. We had some friends who that an alpaca farm and other friends that would arrest a kangaroo rescue in Australia. Right? That's what they that's what the people were doing. They were like horse rescue in the US but it's it's kangaroos and they had to feed them and stuff that it may be fun and maybe a big adventure not for me. If for somebody simple that's I like that better. Simple.
Collin 19:19
Yeah, that's a little it's kind of like you know, when someone says, oh, the the building is quaint. Like you mean small. Like it's real small, isn't it? Right?
Eden 19:30
Perfect. That's it? Yeah. We're not gonna be good tourists. We have some people go to places big model houses and a place specifically for the tourism like they wanted to go to that place. Right. We've been to Egypt. We've been to Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Asia, some of the US, Mexico central most of Central America. And other than Egypt, we really didn't. We're not we don't even tourist stuff. We don't even go out and do the touristy things. It's just not what we do. Right homebody?
Collin 20:02
homebodies who travel internationally and live in other people's houses? Yeah. Well, again, it's it's understanding, really taking time to understand what you want out of it. And I'm sure you can learn that through experience and a lot of self introspection and just go, okay, like, this is what we're up for. And we're gonna make it work for us. You know, you know, how do you how do you make this work for the long haul, though? Like, is this something that is someone can do for years and years and years? Or is this just a short period that people can do for their in their life?
Eden 20:36
No, I think they can do it for you. We're going like I said, in six years, and we have no plans of stopping COVID COVID knocked us on our feet a little bit, but we just finished four months in Hawaii. So I mean, there's no there's no end to this. There's no for as many reasons as you can think that you want to house it or you possibly can houses are, the owners have that many millions of reasons why they need this theater. I mean, there's, it's, there's just no end to it, I think it's actually going to become more, my personal perspective is the demand for housing is going to become greater as the world goes on sale, from all the tourism dollars that are lost in all these countries, they're going to be on sale. And people are now that figured out that they can work no more remotely, they may be able to take a longer vacation, they're going to use that money instead of going to Vegas. They're like, Hey, we could go for the same price, we go to Vietnam for a week or three weeks or whatever. Right? So I have a feeling that as the world starts opening up again, and is that I really do foresee that the tourism dollars going to go a lot further, which means people are going to be leaving their homes for a lot longer. And there's a lot more house sitting ability availability for longer terms that
Collin 21:45
you know, these past six years, what's it been like doing it together with your husband?
Eden 21:51
It's been really fun. Like I said, we had to learn, right? So we did when we started on beginning we didn't ask all the questions. We one of the things we forgot to ask if there was Wi Fi. I completely forgot to ask, do we have like this list of things that we kept a list of questions, but every we just kept adding to it? Oh, remember not because we will not take a house that where they have an expensive car. We won't take the house that were the house that are come that housekeeper comes every single day. Like we we started writing all these things down that we wouldn't would not do. So yeah. Which was really smart, I guess in the beginning, but like you said we'd learned from experience. It's been nice with my husband is Oh, it's 26, my senior, that we have a big age gap. So I do most of the travel booking. I present to him and say, Hey, I saw one that looks like this. What do you think about this? And I really analyze it before I present it to him. Like I really, really even if I have to contact somebody and say Can I get some more information about this before I present it to him? And then see if it's something he's interested, I know him well enough to know that. Generally he is, you know, I don't know how people do it alone. To be perfectly honest. We have this team, like, you know, he's responsible for the morning duties, I'm responsible for the night duties. And if the dog like if the dogs need to be walked early in the morning, then we go together, but then I go home and go back to bed and then he takes care of everything for the day. So whatever if that means dealing with the housekeeper or the gardener or the mailman or turning the sprinklers on or whether he just has his routine, he's he's the outside person. We've we've made we've assessed this as one of those things that you learn to But the trouble is that he's the outside person. So when we get to the house, the owners will say oh, I'm going to show you the sprinklers like That's funny. They can you can show me the washing machine you can show me the dishwasher you can show me the inside the house the TV and all that stuff. But if it's outside the house that Tim where's the water shut off, where's the electrical shut off, that's all him like you You just handle it but he has his thing and I have my widget i think is important to feel both like we each have a responsibility instead of as a burden on one person. That's why I don't understand how people can do it solo because that's all you and that it would be way too much for me
Collin 24:02
thinking about if you are doing it solo, recognizing some limitations that you may have or or really diving into exactly. Okay, like this is where my strengths are. So I really need to lean into that whenever I'm picking these sets. versus if you're doing it as a team you can okay well I know nothing about electrical system so you get to have fun with that and that's what you get to know everything about and just just knowing that right knowing that about yourself and knowing about that with your with your partner or your spouse that you're traveling with. Do you ever do you ever struggle with with with burnout or with like, fatigue from that process? Or does that does that kind of moving, invigorate you through through through everything?
Eden 24:44
No, I absolutely do. That's a great question. No, I absolutely do I get I do get burnt out. We do prefer longer sets like more than three weeks, three weeks, a month and a half. We prefer longer sets because of that reason alone. Just just to get there. Sometimes, especially if it's another country can be exhausting. I just want to get into the mood, like just get in the groove. Right. And like a seven day set, you kind of don't do that. We take them, but we we don't prefer them. Especially a new place. I would never take a short set in a new a new area that I'd never been to a country, especially country never been to. Yeah, but I do I do get. Yeah, like I guess it's organizational burnout. What do you call it? But it's like between coordinating the flights, and then the scheduling the people and you know, the taxi to the house? And then how are we going to get around once we're there? Because once you're there, it's a stress? It's Yeah, sometimes it's in language. You don't. We're in Morocco. We don't speak French. We don't speak Arabic. And we were six hours south america cash. Like, we're, we're in no man's land, right? We went to the grocery store. We couldn't speak the language. We don't speak Arabic or French. And that's the French grocery store. And luckily, we speak some Spanish and though for some reason the security guys spoke Spanish and actually did have there was a point where I didn't bring any bags with me and the king had declared on Monday. No more bags. No more plastic bags in the country. Well, we don't know that because we don't watch the news and Mako. We went to the grocery store on Wednesday, and the girls like telling me I need to buy a bag. Where's my bag? And I'm like, I have no idea what the woman saying that she's pointing over there. There's food. I don't know what she's pointing out. I have all these groceries. And the guy had the security guy spoke Spanish and had said you know your bolsa, where's your boat on the bolster? And I'm like, I don't have a bag. And he's like, you need a bag. And um, but he's doing it in Spanish, which I could understand. But yeah, it the whole process is quite can be exhausting. So that's why being somewhere sit for long for a while. Helps through that.
Collin 26:46
Yeah, I can really imagine because I'm sure many of us have tried to take a short vacation and planned it and gotten there and be like, I'm just need to go away to relax. And then we get back from that. And we're like, oh, I need a vacation from my vacation. That was a lot.
Eden 27:05
Yeah, we do. So we don't have anywhere to go back to but we if we're in the same place long enough, we can actually get in the zone where we're like, it's that first week with the How do you get around where the grocery stores, you know, power just went off? or whatever, you know, and then you have pets to take care of. and responsibility to house also. So it can be it can be overwhelming. It's definitely at times it can be overwhelming. Yeah. Well, in a good way, because the reward is worth it.
Collin 27:28
Yeah, cuz you get to be in those places, you get to have those new experiences. And yeah, you know, totally, totally worth it. But taking that time to look for those longer house sets and just work through this process that you have in place.
Eden 27:40
Yeah, having and having somebody like having gone through it. Like obviously, in the beginning, because we were in Granada, when we took Moses original set it we were already comfortable with the neighborhood. We knew what the grocery store was, we knew how to get around, we lived there. So that made life. That's why I was saying if you do them with friends, and if you try it out with friends and family or getting the word out to your local network, you're going to be more comfortable just because you know something? Right. You know, the grocery store chain that's within 200 miles of your house. Right? It's not going to be something foreign and just getting to see if you like that feeling though it is it is it can be overwhelming. Yeah, that was a great question. Nobody's ever asked that question before.
Collin 28:16
Oh, well, I you know, I just I just think about that of like, I know I get exhausted whenever we have to do like it just like a connecting flight and the the travel to get from one place to another. So I'm sitting here thinking going, Yeah, if you were doing that constantly, or you know, as a living before, for for your lifestyle, like I don't know if I would be able to do that because it is I get fatigued planning a vacation one time.
Eden 28:43
So they don't get back to back. Right. So like in Morocco, we didn't even get to be tourists because we had to be back to Spain. For the day the guy showed up. We had to catch the bus that next morning, which is an all day busting and flight to Spain, because the owners there were leaving the next day. Like I mean, sometimes it's really, we have one coming up in Mexico where we're going to be back the back there, we're actually leaving the house before they come home. Because we have to get to the next house that so there's all you know that coordination Yeah, it can be
Collin 29:16
it can be exhausting. Well, you know, speaking of exhausting and overwhelming, you know, here in 2020 that's kind of the name of the game these days. How How, how has from from your perspective and in your connections? How has the enemy talked a little bit about the future of the industry of rebounding, but but what's the industry really been like, this year so
Eden 29:39
far? It's been tough. It's it has been hard the housing community came together like you cannot even believe I was so impressed. when things started shutting down. Some people were in transit like from that we're gonna sit in England and they were from Australia and they weren't turkey when they you know And then England said, we're not taking anybody more turkey shut their borders down or whatever. And some people were, and you, you have to think financially, there's now an attic, that you've already laid out the money and put things in place. And now you have this other financial burden and you don't even know where you gonna live at this point, right? The house and and community have just came together like, I just could not believe one girl, or one, maybe a small group of girls, it wasn't me organize a Facebook group for to help people find somebody if you knew somebody that had an empty room or a casita or a mother in law quarters that can be used or an empty condo or something that you're willing to let the house sit or stay in. Could you ask people around and they put it in this group? And then people were like, Hey, I'm in this town. Does anybody know anybody? Oh, it was just phenomenal. They came together, it was hard to I mean, it has been it has been hard. A lot of senators who were completely nomadic, full time sitters, not a lot, several, probably probably a couple dozen have bought vehicles like bam, conversion vans kind of things, those live in vans, where they can actually park it outside of a house now. So they don't feel like that there has to be a burden on the homeowner. Like I said, some homes are only one bedroom, or they only have two twin beds, like if somebody lives alone, they don't necessarily need a large bed. They, so they've gone a different route, or they've actually invested money into their transportation. Maybe they're on England or their European continent, or even the US where they can just work around the country that they're in. Yeah. We ended up with a four month house in Hawaii only by chance it was a Canadian couple was supposed to be sitting there but they couldn't leave Canada. But because we're Americans, and we're in the US already, we could take this it. We still had a 14 day quarantine. But we did take the set. The community has come together like really amazing. I'm I'm just a joyful group of people that are just really care about each other.
Collin 32:03
And to be in that kind of community in this time of crisis to have them to come around each other and support each other like that. I mean, that's just that's so, so amazing. To see people rally in that way.
Eden 32:17
Yeah, and especially when it's sometimes it's like, those are your competitors, right? Instead of those people were competing for the same set. But then for you to be like, Oh, you know what, I just talked to Julia and she said her aunt has a condo you can go stay at. You know, I know I took that sit from you last year. But I got that sit and you didn't and that sucks. But yeah, it was. It was a lot of camaraderie. It was really, really beautiful. We were fortunate. We were in a five week layover, we were heading to Europe to go to Egypt. We had five months in Egypt. And we had a month to get there. We're taking a repositioning cruise. And then we were spending a couple of weeks in Portugal and Spain. And then we were gonna fly to Egypt, for the five months sit and we were on our layover in Las Vegas. My mom was in Las Vegas. So we were laying over here for five weeks, which is our gap and hanging out with her. And that's when everything shut down. So we ended up staying here for two months. And then we drove up to Montana, my daughter had a RV basically that we could hang out in which we never had done before and never lived in an RV. We kind of did that for a month. And he had a house and we lived in RV park. So which was fun, because it was on my bucket list. I want him to do it. Yeah. And then and then the house and then the Hawaii house that came up. And so we did that.
Collin 33:30
Thinking about the industry. as a whole. You mentioned it came together. What other kinds of changes do you think are going to stick around or have been implemented as a whole?
Eden 33:42
I think this travel vehicle thing is gonna stay around for a while I think that there's I think that's going to be a real thing where people are going to have their own little safety net of, of habitation, like, you know, literally a place to put the rest of their head, but they're also still going to house it. I think that this is going to be something that's going to be a lot more. I know it's common in Europe, people do rent caravans for months at a time and girls drive around. But I now the ownership of them to live out of that dam per se but only temporary right, you're gonna have maybe a few weeks and then you have a house for a few weeks and then you move on. I think this is going to be something that's going to be pretty common more common than we think
Collin 34:26
one of the other recent things that's changed in the house hunting industry is you launched your very own house
34:31
it platform.
Eden 34:33
That was unheard of because six years ago, you would have told me we would have had a house sitting platform I would have been like, No, not me. I am. I mean I'm not. I'm telling you tech savvy. But just not a business I would have thought we would have taken on and we got to Hawaii and we launched how set Hawaii calm. And it's we're slowly we're slowly growing it obviously it's a baby. Yeah, it's just as in sympathy. But we do have a handful house that we have actually have a handful owners on there already that have joined. But we saw that Hawaii really is its own it's almost like its own country. Definitely. And when you realize how long that people that do not you know, you and I could drive and meet each other somewhere, right? But you can't do that in Hawaii, if you're taking a vacation, you're flying, you're leaving. So if you're going to pay the money to fly, you're going to stay more than three or four days. Right, you're going to take a job, you're going to make that job three weeks, a month, month and a half something longer, which then leads into the perfect opportunity for having house sitters. And we're it's a lot of education, there's, you know, it's not super well known, there's some Hawaii, there are some house sitters, there's a handful of houses that come up every year, but it's a lot of education to the owners. Teaching them what, why they even want a house sitter, because they have a lot of them are just property managed, right. But that's not the same like closing your house down. And turning off the lights and locking it up doesn't mean the water pipe isn't gonna burst. Or the boiler isn't going to backup on its, you know, on its own or the neighbor upstairs in the condo isn't going to plug their place in, it's going to leak into yours. All those things that if you come back a month later, you're going to be pretty screwed. So somebody might be picking up your mail and flipping on your outside lights every night, but they're not checking on the things that need to be checked on to make sure that your pub or in this case, where we were the one of the sprinkler heads busted. So the patch of grass never wasn't getting watered. And then we didn't notice it for three days until it started turning yellow. Had they come home that would have never been repairable. Right. Yeah, so little things.
Collin 36:46
What's it been like getting the word out about it? How has that been?
Eden 36:50
I built the site myself. So I literally all the back end and the messaging and the I use software, but I i plugins for WordPress, but I did it all myself. So it was a three weeks, it was very intense like it was, I've never done such a big project before. And I'm pretty proud of it. But it needs help. But I'm gonna have somebody I'm hiring to do a little bit to make it a little bit prettier. But so I got some burnout. Like I don't know, if you've done that with like, projects, like where you just invest everything into it. And then you're just like, oh, doesn't want me to step away? Please, I need to not think about that. So I was burnt out for a couple of weeks after I really took off. But we did take we have some print media advertising we're paying for in Hawaii. That's circulating, and we're using Facebook. I've had a couple of Facebook ads running. And I've I've been able to target the audience of owners. And it's been going it's going well, it's being well received. I just I have more work to do. I think the house sitters, the house sitters are excited because they who doesn't want to go to Hawaii. Right, right. There's no there's no reason. I better warn them. It's kind of expensive. But you know, there's going to be all kinds of sales on that too, like getting airfare but and things like that. But the Yeah, it's getting it's getting the owners. It really is. I'm not new to the house setting platform. And I house it match in house in Mexico, both of my clients that I've worked the back end with them and and work the marketing and stuff like that with them. I'm not new to the whole process. It's not completely foreign to me. I should lay that off, to be honest. right from the get go. So I'm not completely wasn't overwhelming in terms of I know what needs to be done. Yeah, I just need to make sure I keep doing it and doing it consistently. Yes.
Collin 38:48
Yeah. Well, you know, notice what you did is you noticed that there was a need for that or there's a unique opportunity to provide a very specific targeted house match service with with house sitters in Hawaii specifically. And now building that out, helping educate people, not just potential house sitters about it, but also more importantly, no, not more importantly, but really importantly, as the homeowners going this is something that you can that you can have. And that is something that you can service that you can that will be provided to you and that you can rise.
Eden 39:21
And that's the thing is there that they don't have. They do. There's obviously pet sitters and like the your main audience of people who get paid, yeah, are there. But they are limited, because everything has been a drive, right. So when we were on the Big Island, we're on the Kona side, but he lives two hours away. You can't You can't hire me to go to Hilo. Yeah, I have. I have to have a crew over there that can handle it. And who knows at this point, you know, people are moving in every direction. nobody's really staying still. So yeah, it's just a matter of getting that getting the word spread more and Educating This is continuously educating. Yeah, sure, yeah, it's, but it's it the we figured out that the population of Hawaii is equal to the expat population of Mexico. And how's that Mexico has been very, very successful house that Mexico is a great platform. And when we compare the two, we know that all the people don't struggle, obviously. But when we looked at the demographic, we really did some research in the demographics and stuff. And we found that we feel that we could, if we could tap into a small portion of that market, we can have a successful business and, and provide some really good bits for the house sitters
Collin 40:34
as well. So walk us through how that process works on how set Hawaii from from a housesitter. perspective.
Eden 40:42
So they they join and create a profile, they add some pictures, you talk about yourself, really about what benefits that you bring to the table. Maybe it's something in your past career, the fact that you were a homeowner on a pet owner, your history, maybe pet sitting, right? Unless if you're new, you say you're new, but you have pets, most people that are pet sitters or house sitters with pets have had pets. But if you're a previous homeowner, renter, what you talk about that your career generally is a good thing to talk about. Because often, if maybe you're just a teacher, not just the teacher, God forbid teachers or angels, you're a teacher. But maybe the owner is a teacher, too, or retired teacher, right. So you have something in common. So you try to get a good outline of what you can provide, and who you are as a person, there was some pictures in there, and then they submit that. And then when the owners post it, so the owners do the same thing when they join, and they list their stuff, and they have a whole bunch of questions to ask. And we've pre pre given them questions to ask to build out those cities, so that it entices visitors. Because it's like a sell sell on both sides by the owner selling their home, like we really want you to come watch my pets, they're really amazing guy in he's got a lovable dog, and it's a great house. And then the sitters are like but we're really good people. And we can really do a good job. Two sales pitches, right? It's almost to them that when that's posted, when the sits approved, that we look at it and just make sure everything's filled out. And then once it's posted, the sitter house, it gets an automatically gets an email that goes out to them and says, Hey, house, the only members only people that are registered on the site, get the email that says, hey, houses posted, take a look at it, basically, here it is. And then they look at it. And they can just apply. They literally just send a message we'd like to talk to you about this that we think would be a great fit those dates work for me. And then they apply and then it goes into private messaging. So then the owners in this district can put message back and forth and connect.
Collin 42:43
I often describe the meet and greet process for pet sitting as one of the most awkward speed dating events of your life. Because you do and it sounds very similar to this of like, yeah, I want you to like me, and you want me to like you and we're trying to figure out if we're going to jive and whether this is going to work for
Eden 43:04
it and people don't realize that like they're like the owners don't realize it until they're writing out the bio on like, Oh, no, no, it's gonna be like, no, don't say that. Because that doesn't sound good. Nobody wanted nobody want a house that if they knew that there that the cat had diarrhea all the time or you know, whatever. You know, be careful what you're saying. We want it to sound good. We want them to come here. And then though, it really is. It's it that's exactly what it is. It's it's most awkward relationship, the start of a relationship that you could ever have. And then generally they meet by video, that's generally the next thing but the one thing I can tell people is you got to trust their gut. This is the thing we've learned the most is you really need to trust your gut if it doesn't smell like a rose is not a rose. You've really got to get if you get a bad feeling or you get like you feel like they're not giving you all the information or the way that they talk. We had one sit in Thailand, it was a husband and wife. And every conversation we had with her was I I never mentioned him like never said we it was I do this I this I this and I and we're like isn't is he not leaving? Because just like I'm traveling on these days and I'm and we knew it was a husband wife. Like he she specifically said that they share her husband but it was actually one point but like, Is it just gonna be us there as he said we anything. It just it was really weird. Like, yeah, something was off. And you know, there's We've had a few other ones but the red flags if something just like like you said with the way that they use the word quaint, right? If you have to use your brain and interpret things sometimes. And if it just doesn't jive you just just back away because it's okay to say no
Collin 45:00
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Eden 46:25
Be diligent just be respectful of your own space and be diligent, we just came back we just went through three airports and and we're just about Mexico we're going into we have two air transfers and overnight in the hotel, and then we get to where we're going to be and you just have to be diligent, you have to be respectful of your space. Don't don't expect other people to take care of you be self responsible. You don't carry your wife, do your sanitation, just do what you feel you're doing the best for yourself. I personally because my husband's of elderly age older, since it's older. I'm you know, and he has underlying condition. So I am really Cognizant, like he gets on this, I tell him I'm like you're gonna get I'm going to tell you today because tomorrow when you get that plane seat, I want you to sit down and put your hands up, you know them up high fives, and I just wipe everything I wipe down the seat buckle on like that 30 seconds, it took me to wipe everything down makes me feel better. I don't care if you feel better or not. But it makes me feel better that I did my due diligence, right? I took self responsibility for our space. These are crowded airports were crowded, I was shocked Oakland airport and Vegas airport was crowded, why? I couldn't believe it. And you know whether people are mindful of their masks or not wasn't really relevant, because everybody has a personal opinion. But it was just busy. So we had to make sure we get their space like in the bathroom when you get in line for women. Because we always have a line, right? We you just need to keep your distance like that. You don't have to crowd up on somebody. You even if the lady behind you expanded upon you, you keep your distance like do your best to be self responsible. I think I think that's the most everybody can do. We did. On the flip side, we did have friends that just traveled from Mexico to France via New York, and they're heading to Crete this week, coming up. And she said Mexico, so far everything she's seen Mexico is handling the sanitation. Better than any anything else she's seen so far. Wow, I was happy to hear that.
Collin 48:27
Since you're going in, right.
Eden 48:31
We're gonna spend the winter there. But yeah, it was, I was really happy to hear that,
Collin 48:35
that touches back on that idea of just trusting your gut in all things and trusting your gut in accepting a set and communicating with people looking for those red flags, trusting your gut while you're traveling, what's going to be safe for you What's going to be safe for your traveling partner, just just all the way through understanding that when that little voice starts talking, or those little hairs are coming in the back of your neck, you know, it's time to reassess the situation step back and and see where what you need to do.
Eden 49:04
Yeah, don't be, don't be afraid to push the pause button. And like I said, step back, don't be pressured. Or feel like you have to do something that isn't make you feel comfortable because you do not that your life and you do not have to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable. It you really, I really think it's an age of self responsibility. I think the more the more people that can be self responsible or responsible for yourself for themselves. It is going to is going to continue going through the next few years. You know it
Collin 49:35
really it really just thinking about the Yeah, that that self responsibility and all things taking responsibility for that not just recognizing that I have a role in this. But then taking that responsibility in your actions and the way you communicate like it's it's both recognizing and then acting on it.
Eden 49:55
Absolutely. Yep. I agree. And it's something people forget about right? You just kind of get in your own little bubble. And then once you get in the space, we were Society of peer pressure, there's no doubt about it. You know, you have the nicest cars on everybody in the street has new car, you're gonna want a new car. I mean, it's just we've been in the US, we're commercially driven, like by what everybody else is doing. And you just have to, when you travel outside the US, especially to get outside the little bubble, you realize that you just don't have to follow that. But when you're when you're around more people, you know, you're at a conference a year ago, you're at a concert, and you're all gathered, packed together to go into the place. I'm telling you the airport, we were in lines of people that we were in crowds of people that I was uncomfortable with, so I literally flared my elbows up, and just kind of made myself a circle, like, the back the hell away from me. Like, I don't need to sew clothes. Get away from me. And I, if you don't like that, that's, that's your problem. But this is my personal space. And I'm going to take responsibility for it. Yeah, I think I mean, obviously, I'm not wasn't a smartass about it. But rude. I just was saying, hold on, you know, this is not the old way. This is our new ways. Now.
Collin 51:12
Well, not feeling self conscious to do that to make that statement, because you mentioned like, this is about getting out of our bubble, of my little bubble of what I think my world is. That's, that's one of the things that International House that and traveling is all about is getting outside of that bubble and putting yourself in new situations, experiencing new things, meeting new people and seeing the globe, but recognizing that you saw personal agency about it, and you saw the personal responsibility for yourself and people around you.
Eden 51:42
Absolutely. Well said that was very well said. That's exactly what that's about.
Collin 51:48
Your people are listening and thinking that this is something that they're interested in. And we've already talked about some steps that they can take to get their feet wet. But you know, what are some of your favorite resources? Or this field this industry that people can go and check out? Listen to? or read or get in contact?
Eden 52:08
Well, I do think you should look at the website is it how's it how's that Mexico and how's it match are probably my two favorites. But you should actually browse, there's there's other symbol what No, madore my house, we're not big fans are trusted. So it's just too competitive. There's a lot of there's a lot of other sites out there that are not as competitive. But you need to look at the look at what's out there and dream. I mean, start dreaming, like look at it and see if you can actually if any of it excites you. Right, and, and, you know, you can do a lot of things in the world without actually doing them. And this is one of those things that you can actually step into it just a little bit and get your toes wet just by looking. Because when you look, you might be Oh my God, I would never do that. Right? This one was talking, you might be excited about it. But when you read, like there's, they say responsibilities of sitter, and you'd start looking at those and you go, Oh, this is just not for me, then you don't, but it may open up your eyes to start dreaming about, Hey, you know, we can like I said, we can take that two weeks vacation and go to Spain, and have a house that and not pay for lodging, and we have to watch the dog. So you have some responsibility. But that doesn't mean you don't have a car. And you can still go out to the beach for three hours at a time and come back or something. I mean, you could still have a great time seeing something since come up in Rome, obviously not right now. But downtown London, Paris, France apartments in Paris, France. I mean, can you imagine like, what are you gonna pay this day in Paris. But if you've been been, sometimes they're really short, which is don't get killed because people are transitioning. They want the longer sit. But it may fit you perfectly. You might go to Italy for five days, and then Paris for five days, and you made yourself a great vacation. Yeah, you might, like you said you might get a little exhausted from all the planning and the nuances of getting all the fine tuning everything. But you're going to get to see it with at no cost for lodging. I mean, that's a that's huge.
Collin 54:09
Yeah, I love that first step dream. And then just start browsing a window shopping doesn't really have that big of an impact, but it'll give you some idea of whether that's going to work for you and it gives you a little bit more exposure to what that world is like and you can read about what those responsibilities are and say Oh, is that something I could do? Can I see myself doing that kind of try on those different hats and see what's going to work best for you?
Eden 54:31
Exactly. I mean, you do it on Amazon, right? you browse on Amazon looking at things you may never buy, why not look at travel. You never do it but why not look at it.
Collin 54:40
Why not an apartment in Rome, right?
Eden 54:42
Why not? Exactly. Not right now. Maybe next year? I honestly do. I do think that they the once things open up I think that the bubble I think there's going to be homes that are vacant and people are going to want people in them because they Just don't want them vacant. Even if it's like second homes, right? They have their second home somewhere and they just don't want. They don't want to sit in Macon, we've, we've been in porta viar toe, we've been offered an apartment. And they just don't want to sit vacant. It's vacant right now. And she's like, you can sit there, you can stay there as long as you want no responsibility. We will pay electric if we say long term. But she's like, basically, we're house sitting with no Pat. And they'll take care of it. But they just don't want that apartment sitting vacant. And because there's no tourism, it's vacant. There's just, I really, I really think over the next six, eight months, this thing's unwind. The world's gonna be a really different place for traveling. It's a better a better place for people to travel to.
Collin 55:42
Eden, this has been a really wonderful conversation. I'm really thankful that you joined us today and have been sharing about experiences, how to get involved and the really exciting new platform that you've started. So tell us tell us how to check out check that out and and get in touch with you if people have more questions and want to learn more about what the life of a international traveling housesitter is.
Eden 56:06
So our website is really truly living calm, which obviously makes sense. And then house at Hawaii calm is the other site, but I'm really truly living you can absolutely contact me. There's links to the Facebook pages. The House of Hawaii obviously has a has a link there. Yeah, any any. But honestly, I'm I'm always open to talk to people and spend as much time as I can to help them. See if there's something that that fits with them. If it's something that they could do if they want to make the jump, where should they start? That's usually the biggest question. Where do I start? Like, where do I go? And if you can't go local, and you want to go somewhere? That's not local, you really, really take a vacation, I would say, for the US, the continental US, I would say Mexico is your best bet. Because it's it one is open right now. But it's easy to get to it's easy to get back, you get a six month visa on arrival. You're not stuck, and it's very inexpensive. Getting around is good and buses and planes. And all that stuff is great, though. But yeah, I'm always happy to talk to people. They can reach out anytime they want any questions.
Collin 57:09
And then I'll have links to everything we've talked about and the sites you've mentioned, and some of those resources listed as well. So I'll include that in the show notes and on the website too. So people can can use that whenever they're ready to start looking and start making that jump again, want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your day and your schedule to come and talk and share about this today. It's been it's been a real pleasure.
Eden 57:30
Well, thank you call and I really appreciate you having me on. I really do.
Collin 57:34
It may seem weird to talk about international travel housesitting, as we're not quite out of the woods yet, in this pandemic. But I think it's really important right now to start considering that if you have ever been interested in internationally traveling or just to house sitting in general, that now is the best time to start looking to start seeing what's going to interest you. And just as Eden said, to start dreaming and thinking about all of the possibilities. What we have as professional pet sitters and a dog walkers is that we have a lot of transferable skills into this exact market into the real needs of house owners and pet owners across the globe. And that it can be an opportunity for us to start branching out and at least trying something new and trying something different. And I really like the spirit that Eden brings to that of just try it and see if it's going to be something that works for you. We want to thank our sponsors, time to pet and pet perennials for making this week show possible. And thank you for listening this week. Thank you for all that you share from the bottom of our hearts. We can't tell you much how we appreciate you listening and being a part of this podcast. We will be back again soon.
