First published by The Times on 20 August 2022
There are many desirable qualities in a friend — loyalty, humour, compassion — but for me, the crucial thing is that they live abroad and they love plants. I mean really love plants, like my friend Rosie in Paris. She has about 20 pots, which all need careful and persistent watering; she also likes to travel, which is even better.
So it is that I find myself here in her beautiful apartment, on horticultural duty until the end of August. It’s part of a mega house-sitting summer in the French capital for me: I also emptied a few watering cans in Montmartre in July for an American friend while she spent three weeks in New York.
House-sitting is a wonderful thing. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to spend more than a week or so abroad. It’s all very well to suggest booking into an Airbnb, but in peak season in Europe it’s not much cheaper than a hotel. My friends’ kindness has allowed me to bring my work and linger here, living in France as a local rather than a bewildered tourist.
I’m definitely on the better side of the deal than Rosie and her partner, who could’ve asked a neighbour to do the watering. I can cook here, lie on their living-room sofa or work at the kitchen table, rather than being cooped up in a hotel room. At a rented flat, I may have had to put up with a stranger’s dodgy taste in erotic art or their misleading claim that the shops are “a short walk away” (45 minutes in blistering heat). At a mate’s home, you know what you’re getting. You also have all the mod cons of being in a place where somebody actually lives: you’re not going to find that they haven’t provided a corkscrew, or that they only have two plates.
Of course, things can go wrong. Someone I know (let’s call her Joan) did a house-sit for a friend of a friend (let’s call her Susan). Joan knew that Susan had a sideline in pet-sitting, so she thought it would be fine for the mutual friend and her partner to come over for dinner with their dog. Unfortunately when Susan saw a picture of this get-together on Instagram, things quickly soured. She responded indirectly with a social-media post of her own, calling for house-sitters who wouldn’t abuse her home with “pets or wild parties”. “I had two friends and their dog over for pasta,” says Joan now. “It wasn’t a wild orgy, Moulin Rouge-style, with dogs, elephants and strewn condoms.” Nevertheless, I don’t think she’ll be invited back.
To avoid such hiccups, err on the side of extreme caution. Look after things; ask your hosts if they want you to do any laundry they’ve left behind, so they can come home to clean sheets; replace the groceries you use and leave a gift when you go. Be nice to the neighbours and don’t make any noise. Follow the recycling rules, and don’t run up bills carelessly. Check it’s OK before inviting other people to visit you there, and always offer to pay rent or cover the cost of utilities. If your friends take you up on it, they’re still likely to charge you far less than a holiday let.
Obviously there’s luck involved — I’m fortunate to know people here, but a house-sit in the UK could be just as lovely a change of scene. In my late teens, the family I babysat for asked me to look after their place while they were away; they lived in the same city as me but it was still bliss.
Bear in mind, though, that some people aren’t comfortable with anyone staying in their home. A gentle way to suggest it might be, “If you ever want someone to look after the place while you’re away, just let me know — I’d love to house-sit.”
Caution: even the most conscientious of us can be unlucky. Another friend, then in her twenties, jumped at the chance to stay at her terrifying boss’s swanky London house for ten days and feed the cat. “I was tiptoeing around, not touching anything, keeping my stuff in a suitcase,” she recalls. ‘It wasn’t a ‘make yourself at home’ situation.’
Nevertheless, it was all going well until she asked a friend to keep her company; she awoke to find that the friend had tried to boil an egg in the microwave, causing the appliance to explode and all the power to be lost on the ground floor. “The whole kitchen stank of egg, like I’ve never smelt before,” she says grimly. She had 36 hours until her boss was due back, and owning up was not an option. In the end, she consulted an electrician friend who said the situation looked bad; he advised them to try dismantling the (fancy, inbuilt) microwave completely, letting it dry out overnight, then reassembling it using a YouTube tutorial.
Reader, they did it. Power was restored, the microwave survived, the egg aroma dissipated and her boss was none the wiser. So that’s another tip if you really want to play it safe while house-sitting: stick to salads and takeaways.