Home is where the Minder is
From Peoplebrokers
Home is where the minder is
Pollyanna Sutton. "The Sunday Age"
Tired of returning home from your holidays to a dusty house and a dead garden. Pollyanna Sutton reports on an alternative, a house-minding agency.
REMEMBER that pitiful look in the eyes of your dog or cat as you waved it goodbye at the pet motel? You were off on a six-week tour, the house was empty, the garden crying for water, the living room light blinking on, then off, on the same timer pattern every night.
You may have considered a house minder but, short of asking your friend's teenage son who is into late nights and loud metal music, there was no one available.
I have been on both sides of the house-minding fence, the professional person looking for solace from an awful house share and the proud home maker waving my extremely healthy gardenia goodbye.
It is an arrangement that can work beautifully for people going away and who just want someone they can trust to feed the labrador, water the plants and act as a passive deterrent to curious outsiders. In return, the minder has an interim place to live rent free.
Chris Kaine began a house-sharing agency 11 years ago and it seemed a natural progression to introduce house minders to people who wanted their properties looked after.
She said that, in the current real-estate market, there were a large number of high-calibre people willing to mind houses. They have sold their properties and haven't found a new home, or they are renovating and need to escape the building site.
"We have a new elite homeless," she said with a laugh. One of her regular home owners telephones and asks for "another squatter, dear". Ms Kaine said most of her home owners had pets and, if they were going away, it became a very economical exercise to have a house minder. "
People also say it is much nicer to come home to a lived-in house than a cold dusty one," she said. Corporate writer Judith McBride and her seven-year-old son Sam are on the house-minding register at Chris Kaine. Ms McBride has sold her house in Clifton Hill and, because she is putting a lot of energy into starting a second business, she wanted breathing space from house hunting.
"While I am looking for another house to buy, Sam and I want to have an adventure," she said. "I don't particularly want to rent, it is not as interesting as minding an established house with pets for Sam to look after."
Ms McBride said her son was used to living with antiques and was more fastidious than her. "We want to find something lovely that we can look after as our home, do the gardening, feed the animals." Chris Kaine's house-minding service only acts as a register to match like-minded people. The minder, who must be over 30, pays a fee of $200 to join the register for a year's worth of minding. They are interviewed with great focus put on the responsibility they are taking on. A home owner pays $110 to register and $110 per subsequent house mind.
The home owner is asked to nominate a third party to oversee the arrangement so there is someone to contact in case of emergency.
"It is not a domestic service, it is a community thing, of two professional people helping each other out," Ms Kaine said. "The database matches people with similar standards and values and people who are going away with those who are available."