The short answer: if you have pets, a house sitter is usually the right call — pet care is the heart of the exchange and good sitters compete for those stays. If you don't have pets, or don't want a stranger living in your home for two months, a weekly home check covers what actually needs doing without anyone moving in. Here's the honest version of both.
Reviewed July 2026Australian house sitting is a genuine, well-established exchange: a sitter gets free accommodation, the owner gets a live-in presence, and usually the only money that changes hands is a platform membership fee. Aussie House Sitters alone facilitates over 50,000 sits a year. For homes with a dog, a cat or chickens, it works — sitters are typically there because of the animals, references and reviews are visible, and a lived-in home solves the occupancy question at a stroke.
It's a real option, and for the right household we'd genuinely recommend it over paying anyone, including us.
House sitting is a marketplace, and the sitter picks the listing. The overwhelming majority of listings involve animals, because pet care is why most sitters sit — one guide for sitters counted just 13 pet-free sits among roughly 1,500 active Australian listings on a major platform. A pet-free home offers a sitter only free accommodation, which puts your listing in competition with every home that also comes with a labrador, and with the paid accommodation a sitter could simply book instead.
The practical result: pet-free homes — which describes many long-trip travellers, since a 6-week overseas trip and pet ownership don't combine easily — often struggle to attract quality sitters at all, or attract sitters whose real motivation is somewhere to stay. That's where the known failure modes live: the sitter who treats the stay as free rent, the friend-of-a-friend whose workmate quietly moves in, the scope creep that's awkward to police from another hemisphere.
There's also a simpler objection that has nothing to do with marketplaces: some households just don't want a stranger sleeping in their bed and using their kitchen for two months. If that's you, no comparison table is needed.
| House sitter | Weekly home check | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Usually free (platform membership ~$60–100/yr) | Paid — from $69/week with Away & Okay |
| Who's in your home | A stranger lives in it — sleeps, cooks, showers, hosts | Nobody lives in it. One vetted person visits weekly and leaves |
| Pets | The reason it works — sitters compete for pet sits | Not a pet-care service; suits pet-free homes |
| Finding someone | You list, sitters apply — pet-free homes attract few | You book. No marketplace, no competing for attention |
| Accountability | Reviews and references; no contract, no reporting | Service agreement, timestamped photo report every visit, dated log |
| If they cancel | You're relisting from overseas, mid-trip | Vetted backup keeper disclosed up front |
| Insurance conditions | May count as occupancy under some policies — wording varies | Weekly visits align with the care conditions some policies list — check your own PDS either way |
| Record of condition | None, unless you ask and they remember | The product: photos, timestamps, a log you can show anyone |
Insurance row is general information only — policies define "occupied" and set unoccupancy conditions differently. Read what each insurer's documents say, then confirm your own position with your insurer before travelling.
Away & Okay visits weekly — mail cleared, taps run, house aired, garden coordinated, condition photographed — with a timestamped report to your phone and a dated log of every visit. Serving Carnegie, Caulfield, Malvern, Glen Iris, Elsternwick, Oakleigh, Bentleigh and surrounds.