Comments on: Housesitting and Disorientation

By: Barn Owl

Barn Owl — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:07:55 +0000

I loved housesitting and petsitting when I was in graduate school, but I was always paid in cash, garden produce, or wine (and often a combination of all three). I was encouraged to help myself to food in the pantry and refrigerator (within reason) for the duration of my stay. I had started making the transition from “mix” cook to “ingredients” cook (to use Mike’s terminology) at the beginning of grad school, because that was very much the culture, and I also found that I enjoyed cooking from scratch. One time, however, I housesat for a professor and his wife who, apparently, cooked things so completely from scratch that there wasn’t even anything like cans of stewed tomatos or tomato puree. I think they ground their own wheat into flour, and sent the dog out to bring in small game. It was that bad. And they lived well outside of town, in the middle of freakin’ nowhere.

Fortunately, there was an amazing natural history library to peruse, while waiting for the lentils and rice to cook with the onion I dug up in the garden.

I don’t even ask grad students to housesit, because I don’t have most of the amenities that they’re accustomed to. Things are just different now. However, I do occasionally housesit for friends, and always feel compelled to clean and tidy, because I can’t abide living in a mess.

By: Jason Thibeault

Jason Thibeault — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:00:16 +0000

No, I haven’t tried any kind of sleep aid outside of whiskey in all honesty. Or, since we’re talking about SkepchickCon specifically, Buzzed Aldrins. Though booze does work, I don’t want any kind of dependency. I also don’t like to complain, though, so I’d try to put on a good show of being totally fine. My tells are that I’d be leaning heavily on coffee and Jodi, FYI.

Maybe if I had a sleepless night, I could hunt for the ghost cat. I suppose that would be fun.

By: Stephanie Zvan

Stephanie Zvan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:49:45 +0000

A cat who isn’t seen while we have company does not a haunted house make, Mike.

Jason, have you tried sleepy pills? You may not survive SkepchickCon without sleep.

By: Mike Haubrich, FCD

Mike Haubrich, FCD — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:40:17 +0000

Be careful. I hear the Zvan house is haunted!

By: Jason Thibeault

Jason Thibeault — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:14:47 +0000

Oh, I’m not saying it makes me a horrible houseguest, just a very sleep-deprived one. Stephanie has already offered to put us up for the non-Con days on our honeymoon to MN (an extraordinary and welcome offer), so I’m hoping it won’t be a problem.

By: Mike Haubrich, FCD

Mike Haubrich, FCD — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:54:27 +0000

Well, I won’t let you stay at my place then! Hotels for you and Jodi.

(will this be a problem when you get married?)

By: Jason Thibeault

Jason Thibeault — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:46:31 +0000

I’m not comfortable unless I have a say in every aspect of the house in which I’m living — any compromises, and they get under my skin. This makes me a horrible roommate. It also makes me unable to sleep even in hotels, much less guest rooms. I’m hoping this won’t become a big factor when we try to get to MN for CONvergence, but what can you do?

I need some more coffee right now.

By: Mike Haubrich

Mike Haubrich — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:04:02 +0000

It’s kind of funny how housesitting can be sold as a “Free way to stay in a cool house.” But, I guess the reason that real estate agents sell “homes” and not “houses” is rather apparent.

By: Rob W

Rob W — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:41:58 +0000

When i was a college student, one summer I stayed on campus for most of the summer working on a project I’d gotten a grant for. One of the professors I knew offered me the chance to housesit for him for a couple of weeks, to watch after the cat and hey, have a whole house to myself.

He seemed to think I’d jump at the opportunity, and it would take me a while to sort out *why* it was such a bad idea… so I agreed doubtfully. It was horrible. Sure, a house is more comfortable than a dorm room, sort of, but I now was chained to this place that involved extra work (taking care of the cat, cleaning the house before their return, etc.), stress (worry about breaking something, or leaving a window open in the rain, or the door unlocked, not knowing where to find anything, etc.), and total social isolation, because I didn’t have any close friends on campus anyway, and now I was cut off from the normal evening interactions with other people in the kitchen, hallways, etc. at the dorm. It wasn’t very far from campus, but I had no car (and they left the keys of theirs explicitly only for utter emergencies), so I couldn’t go back and forth at a whim.

And because it was such a favor to me, letting this poor student live in their house, they didn’t pay me a damned thing and even mentioned replacing any food I ate in the helpful note they left with emergency numbers and so on.

It forever soured my image of the professor — we’d gotten along well before that — and whenever I have someone house-sit for me now, they get all kinds of special treatment, like a fridge stocked with their favorite foods, use of the car, the explicit expectation that at least one thing will be broken, and of course payment.

By: Dan J

Dan J — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:22:42 +0000

With hotel rooms I think it seems like no one lives there. It’s just a place to sleep and bathe, basically. With someone else’s house though, it’s definitely strange; stranger still if they happen to not be there while you are. I know someone who house-sits for months at a time for some people. Can’t understand how she does it.