MindMyHouse

After being member of MindMyHouse as a home owner since 2018, I was simply deleted from Mind My House after fraud by a house-sitter couple from Australia. My profile can no longer be found there (for me)!
ALAN and SUSAN = MindMyHouse state that house owners pay nothing as a member and MindMyHouse can cancel at any time!
This house-sitter-couple from Austrialia, paying members of MindMyHouse, during their long-term-stay, they left my property, house and animals unattended 3-4 nights a week and traveled (gates unlocked).
After, they left earlier than agreed, they hid the house-keys, turned lights on in every room in the house, left (drinking) water in the hose in the garden full on. Finally, with a kick against, cellar door was damaged. They refused to share the location of the house keys. Since I was still abroad, local friends wanted to help, but couldn't go into the house!
At MindMyHouse, house-sitters pay an annual fee, while house-owners are offered membership 'free'!
QUESTION: how could MindMyHouse function without house-owners? Which they simply delete when things get uncomfortable!

Ulrike/Austria: 10th August 2023

Apartamento ubicado en la calle San Nicolás # 404, esq. A San Rafael, Centro Habana, La habana Cuba,
Sala- comedor, cocina, cuarto, baño y balcón a la calle

I have been using MindMyHouse for almost ten years now. I have tried others like Trusted Housesitters (TH) who charge 5 times more and have SO many people competing for housesits that homeowners are getting 40 applicants int he first 30 minutes. MindMy House is a family operation, super responsive to any questions or problems, loyal to their subscribers and keep their subscription price super low compared to the competitors. I am impressed with what they offer and how well things work. Of all the platforms I have tried, TH, Nomadors, Housecarers, and other, Mind My House is clearly the best!

This company is after one thing... your money. They make it seem as though they have places to house sit, when in reality they never seem to show as having been covered? Then when you request to cancel due to the few places that are even on their site, they delete your profile and THEN email you to tell you they did but you don't get your money back (even if it's like a month in and you paid for the whole year.) So ridiculous.

And don't even waste your time trying to contact them or get any actual customer service to help. It's basically ZenDesk auto reply messages.

My experiences with mindmyhouse.com have been excellent, it's a great site. Some of the comments imply that mindmyhouse.com should become a huge company like airbnb so that if something goes wrong the user is somehow fully protected, but I think it's wonderful that small operations like this can persist for so long without having to hire a legion of lawyers, phone answerers, and so on. But that means the user has to take more responsibility, and yes, more risk, but it also means it costs much, much less.

I started to use this website as it seemed convenient and helpful. I love the idea behind it. However, there is very little in place to protect you should something go wrong. On my third use of the website something did go wrong. The people who stayed with me were fine with my pets but treated my house with total and utter lack of respect. They caused over £500 gbp of damage, stole many items of my clothing including some of my underwear! And refused to acknowledge anything after they left. As well as that their children have found me on Instagram. As a teacher I do not need this attention online from children, it is very dodgy and I have blocked them. When I reported all of this to the website, they refused to do anything about it until I threatened to go public. Then they SENT THEM AN EMAIL... as if that is enough! There is nothing in place for your protection as a homeowner opening your doors to strangers. I am sorely disappointed at the sheer lack of care from the website with all this damage to my property and I urge everyone out there to avoid using this at all costs! I never expected this level of damage and intrusion into my life and I regret ever having though the website would do ANYTHING to protect me. WARNING: DO NOT USE!

We have used house sitters 4 times at our 3 story lake house near San Antonio. We have generally had good experiences with 1 unpleasant, 1 acceptable and 2 amazing house sittings. The first (acceptable) was a single somewhat disheveled man with a dog. He lived nearby, but wanted to rent his house out for extra money. Dd what was required fed 2 animals and watered 20 plants twice a week), but nothing above and beyond. He seemed to expect a tip upon our return, but I simply ignored his implications and body language as that was never discussed.
The second time (unpleasant) was the same man but with a brand new large 9 week old not housebroken puppy. He didn't tell us about the new dog, so we found out about it like 3 hours before leaving for a 4 week trip. What could we do? Return to a dirty house with several pieces of furniture damage. Reported him to "Mind my House," and was removed as a house sitter candidate.
The third and fourth were neat and clean, newly retired professionals. Both are now on our list of friends. They (both couples) left our house cleaner than when we left. The 4th couple even straightening up my tool shed and greenhouse, which I did not expect. On our 3rd experience, when Covid struck, and we were forced to return earlier than expected, they had made sure to stock us up with bottled water, toiletries, and basic food stuffs because they didn't want us to be left staring at empty store shelves. Both couples provided airport transportation both ways with very helpful attitudes.
Folks, Mind my House.com provides a "bare bones" use at your own risk service with almost no customer service per se. This is NOT a large corporation with phone banks of customer service representatives speaking 14 different languages and a large command structure. I believe it is simply a couple who had an idea and are trying to provide a service. Some tips for selecting house sitters based upon our experiences: 1. Use husband and wife married COUPLES. Not stereotyping anyone, but, in our experience, a single person just has not been as good. It does make sense to me somehow. 2. Use formerly professional people who are used to a nicer lifestyle and are enthusiastic about sitting your home. A reluctant or timid sitter is a bad sign. 3. Use face time or zoom to interview applicants. Notice the clothing, hairstyle, manicures, their house in the background and just general ways of handling themselves. This may sound petty, but you are inviting them into your house and asking them to look after your loved fur babies. Do you want to come home to a dirty house (bedbugs?) and mistreated animals? 4. Insist they come the day before to give yourself the opportunity to cancel, if they bring are not what they claimed to be (have their own animals, cigarettes, cigars, children, etc...
Basically, Mind my House.com is like a flea market that organizes a venue for interactions to take place. They do not even attempt to get involved in your transactions, with the exception of removing clearly unacceptable house sitters after a complaint. After a couple of learning experiences, we have been extremely pleased.

We have used this service 5 times over the last 8 years. (Pre-pandemic, mostly). Not only have we had our house and pets well cared for, we have also made lasting friendships with 2 of our 3 sitters. (We were satisfied with the other one, but have lost touch.)
Yes, it can be scary to leave your house & pets in the care of someone new, but do your homework on the references and so on, and go!

We feel this is a wonderful program and highly recommend it. We have had nothing but very good experiences with our house sitters and have created wonderful memories and great friends. We have only used the site as a way to find house sitters while we were off travelling. We've learned to ask questions, be clear about what we expect from the sitters and to leave clear information for them to refer to. We check in with our sitters often to make sure all is going well for them during their stay. We see this as the responsibility of the homeowner, not the website owner.
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It's my pleasure to highly recommend Mind My House.
I have been a very happy member since 2008.
I really appreciate their attitude and am grateful for the comp during the Lockdown.
I admire how they have upgraded the website through the years, without unnecessary "bells and whistles", and kept the annual fee low.
I'm sure you know of another sitting site in particular that charges a huge fee and does not allow professionals to charge for their services. I saw a few write ups about that site and the fact that the owner became a millionaire from the site turned me off from it.Not that I am against making money off a good idea and if people want to contribute to his bottom line so be it, I just don't like their attitude towards sitters trying to cover their costs for traveling to sits. That's between the homeowner and the sitter.
After reading some of the negative reviews today, I really feel it's up to each individual to do their homework before agreeing to a sit/sitter. It's not the responsibility of Mind my House to vet people.
If you want them to do background checks then they would have to hire a team and charge a huge fee.
I'm grateful for this site.

I was shocked to see some negative reviews. I've been a member since 2005, and had nothing but good sits, prompt communication, and wonderful memories. I do sympathize with those who've been taken advantage of by a sitter. We've had a similar experience, but not from this site. A young couple we took in after a hurricane and let sit robbed/destroyed, so we feel your pain in that area. We have only used the site as sitters, and have been able to travel to 11 countries over our many years of sitting. We've learned to ask questions, be clear about what the accommodation is and what is expected of us. I think this is the responsibility of the applicant, not the website owner. I've not read the info recently, but think they advise a formal agreement and insurance. When we did our first sit in 2005, the Canadian lady said, "Well, if I trust you and you trust me, I'm sure it will work out." We've found that philosophy to be the best policy to follow, and it has worked for us. Happy Housesitting!

I've only had one house sitting experience through Mind My House prior to COVID (well, two since it ended up being a repeat with the same home owners) and it was wonderful. I provided references to the couple who needed someone to care for their home and dog and spoke with them on the phone prior to agreeing to house sit for them. Both of us were taking a risk but spent time communicating via email and phone prior to us house sitting. For the cost of joining it was well worth finding a good match for our trip to spend time living near our daughter's family when they had a new baby. We have been offered other opportunities but are not traveling during COVID so have had to turn them down. For those of you who had bad experiences, I'm really sorry. That does stink. So word of warning to others if you want to have insurance and other compensation, you will need a much more expensive service. There are several out there. This one is a matching service with a small, very affordable yearly fee. You need to be responsible and spend time vetting the situation to see if it will meet your needs.

Mindmyhouse is a great site... but often owners demand sitters to work in return for a bed! From looking after home an pets, minding the garden, doing changeovers for guests, prepraring meals, cleaning and the housesitter staying in the barn, has nothing to do with minding their house or looking after pets. They actually abuse this site to get free labor. Agree that the owners of this site should monitor the demands and sitters should be protected.

I was robbed by a couple, they stole over $1000, pay for my staff and money for food for my animals, then took my truck.
They abandoned my home and animals.
Mind My House offered no help, they did nothing except remove the house sitters from there site.
The couple had good reviews, and seemed normal. Once I left the country they scammed me.
I would not trust anyone from this site, the site offers nothing for help, no insurance and should be held accountable.
The couples name was Cassandra and Lauro.

Mind my House is a house sitting site. They charge a yearly membership fee, for travelers to have access to ads, placed by homeowners who need someone to watch there home while they are away. The home owners pay no yearly fee, Their site is everyday, more and more plagued by ads from abusive people, who own B&Bs, small hotels, rental apts. Etc. Who want people to clean rooms, receive guests, landscape, etc. in exchange for a room to stay. Mind my house allows these people to place these ads. They do not respond to letters of complaint about this matter, nor do they take down these ads nor do they respond to letters asking for a refund because of their unfair trading.