A caretakers job involves looking after a building or buildings and making sure nothing goes wrong with plumbing, electricity, roof leaks and so on. You’re not expected to fix these things yourself, but to either inform your employer or call in the firms who can fix them.
Security is one of the main jobs a caretaker has to take care of, but only through their presence on site, not in becoming personally involved should serious security breaches occur. As a caretaker you will be acting as a deterrent exactly as you do at home.
In both of these respects, looking after buildings and security through your presence, caretaking is exactly the same as house sitting, but many people who are considering caretakers jobs or who are already caretakers seem to ignore the extra benefits that house sitting can bring them.
Firstly all your living costs except food and drink will be free so house sitting is really caretaking with free accommodation.
Secondly there are loads of house sitting jobs (caretaking jobs) available if you know where to look.
Thirdly it’s easy to get a free home and guarantee yourself a stream of job offers through unpaid house sitting, or you can easily become a professional house sitter and get paid.
The great thing about changing your thinking from commercial caretakers jobs to ‘live in’ caretakers jobs, i.e. house sitting, is that there is no difference in the work requirement from that of running your own home, you get a free house to live in and everything you usually pay for is paid for by the home owner. Sometimes you will even be able to take food out of your living costs equation if the home owner supplies it.
At first you may not be getting paid, but this is compensated by your reduction in living overheads. When you have compiled several good references from free house sitting you can start charging for your services and although you might be tempted to join an agency remember that by undercutting agency costs to home owners you can guarantee yourself plenty of jobs and remain your own boss.
Things you can often get from house sitting that you may not get from caretaking are cheap phone calls and utilities, cheap home broadband, cheap home entertainment sometimes including large plasma screen televisions and cheap home audio because some home owners have superb sound systems. None of these things can be cheaper than free, which is what they will be to you as a house sitter!
Many house sitting jobs are also within walking distance of local shops, saving you fuel and vehicle running costs and allowing you to live extremely cheaply.
Admittedly you may be asked to look after a few pets, although with some house sitting jobs there aren’t any pets to worry about, but these may only be cats that basically look after themselves once you’ve given them their food and water or dogs and if you’re a dog lover then this is no problem as they can be a pleasure to take care of in exchange for getting free accommodation in return.
It’s a mistake to think there are less benefits in becoming a house sitter than a caretaker because house sitting wins out every time in every way as I’ve set out above and as a professional house sitter you’ll find far more of your life’s problems answered than they will be if you become a caretaker.