I would take some time and type out all of this information and leave it in a binder. It's not just for house sitters; anytime family or friends check up on your house, they'll find this information handy. And I'd also assemble a checklist for myself so I remember to hold the mail and tell the neighbors someone is new.

I once was a guest on a friend's house, in a foreign country, while he was on a hospital due to an unplanned surgery - I actually arrived when he was out. Some days before, he made me a list, complete with photos and arrows pointing to the stuff he wanted me to know about, such as how not to lock myself in the bathroom and where the supermarket is, and mailed me.
It's very funny and customized, apart from being completely useful - and it's also being kept as a memoir from those vacations for being so thoughtful.

I've done all that and more for house/pet sitters who came with highest recommendations -- I write everything out and walk them through, make sure they will feel at home -- and I have had them nod and tell me they had everything straight and would take food care of my dogs. Then I come home and find that a raucous party was held in my home (yes, really), that they were rarely home and left elderly dogs out in the cold, unfed and unmedicated (yes, really), that dishes were broken and fruit juice spilled and left to etch the stone counter (annoying, but nowhere near the mishandling of my dogs). I will never hire another house sitter.

@urbancricket, I live in a high-fire-danger zone where i've had to evacuate several times for fires, a couple that nearly got my home. To expect a house sitter to "grab one painting" and your documents box is outrageous. Honestly, I've fled with nothing but the dogs and their supplies.

Let the sitter know when garbage/recycling day is and where to put the cans/bins out.

Also, the people I frequently house/pet sit for buy me food to eat at their house during my stay. It is not necessary, but a nice gesture. I think their thinking is that if everything I need is already there, it's less reason for me to leave their house. They show we where everything they've bought for me is and also tell me to help myself to anything already there.

@ruralandrueful - in my opinion you just had some bad sitters! I am VERY respectful to the home I house sit for. Only if I am straight out told I am allowed to have guests will I have any over (and at that, I've only ever had 2 people max over at a time and never for a party-like soiree). The last day of my time there is always spent cleaning up, returning things to their place, doing laundry (yes, I strip the bed I slept in, wash the sheets, and put them back on the bed), and writing a note to the homeowners letting them know how things went. No one wants to come home from a trip and have to clean up after the sitter!

I once house-sat for someone who forgot to buy food and cat litter for her cat before leaving the country for 3 weeks. I ended up moving the cat to my house where she would get plenty of food and attention.

Little post-its on the light switches saying which switch turns out what could be helpful. I know I still get switches confused in my own kitchen!

@Rachel C Brooklyn, that's so sad! I make sure to leave at least twice the amount needed when I go out of town with some catnip and new toys for the kittlens and wine and snacks for my kitty watcher just to cover all my bases! I hope the kitty gets more attention when they're home.

I also have a cat who suffers from asthma so I make sure the vet has my credit card info before I go out of town just in case.

I just got home after house sitting for two weeks for my parents and our dogs. So obviously I was familiar with the house and the pets. But they have gotten some new appliances since I moved out and I don't know the exact feeding amounts etc. One dog gets different supplements, etc. My mom is an old pro at having house sitters though and wrote instructions for everything, and measured out all the dogs meals in little labeled baggies so all I had to do was open the bag and dump it into the bowl every morning and night.

Also If you know there is something you will need when you get back, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't ask if the sitter could pick it up for you. Usually they will need to go to the store for their own stuff anyway. I made sure there was fresh milk, a must for my parents, and some breakfast food so they wouldn't have to go out and get those things for the morning as they were getting in late after a 12+ hour flight.

I am glad this article focused not only on how to be a good house sitter but how to be a good client, it makes a difference. Although i would always go friends or family for such things.

Re: pet care, I think it's important to have the pet/house sitter over and have your animals meet them before you leave so there's possibly an increased level of comfort. If you have cats, tell your house/pet sitter where their hiding places are, because especially with cats, they might be friendly while you're there, but when a strange person is entering their abode, they might run and hide. If you have a "special needs" cat like I do, who needs an insulin shot twice a day - not just food left out for her - this info. is important, so the sitter can find your pet and attend to them.

About 50% of my life is spent in strange homes taking care of pets. Here are things I appreciate knowing:

If your vacuum involves anything more than flipping a big, obvious switch, please show me how to use it. I'm too poor to own a Dyson or whatever so I have no clue what to do.

If you have multiple game and entertainment systems, please leave detailed notes on how to flip back and forth between tv, dvds, and games. I will save this for future visits.

Please leave an adequate amount of food for your pet. Also leave an adequate amount of poop bags so I'm not forced to raid your zip-locs.

Please don't leave your dirty laundry scattered around or a sink full of old, dirty dishes.

The big one: If you are unable to be reached, please leave me the name of a family member or friend whom you trust to make quality of life/end of life decisions on your behalf when it comes to a pet. I do not want that responsibility since our thresholds for what we're willing to allow our pets to endure are probably different.

I generally have wonderful clients who allow me to eat whatever is in their kitchen and don't care if I invite a friend or two over to use the BBQ and watch a movie. Some tip me beyond what I charge (always appreciated, especially with animals who need injections, fluids, extra care or are just high maintenance).

My favorite client makes a point of acclimating her crazy cat to a later morning feed schedule so I'm not forced to suffer the cat yowling at 4:30AM which is when said client gets up to go to the gym. Her boyfriend has me email him lists of movies I want to see and he queues those up in Netflix.
My least favorite would squabble over any price increases (I asked for $5 more per night over the holidays! gasp!), didn't think two adult dogs needed to be housebroken, and left lists of intensive housework for me to do (she would suspend her actual housekeeper while I was there since she figured she could get free work out of me). No, lady, I will not clean your windows, dust the ceiling, and tidy your entertainment system's cables. She would also ask me to hire a dog walker out of my own pocket, which would have been 90% of what she paid me daily, on the days I went to work. I told her she either needed to pay me enough to quit my job or continue to pay her own dog walker to come in twice a day as usual.

@ Rural and Rueful@ THAT is terrible! Please now not all Housesitters are like that. I had a friend who was housesitting for someone and invited tons of people over. I don't think it got rowdy at all, but I remember thinking, "But, but, it's not your house!" Whenever I have house sat for someone, I bring my own food and supplies. I never invite people over; not even a guest to watch movies with. I have had friends who want to hang out with me there but I always decline. I think if it were MY house, I would feel weird about a stranger staying there anyway. I certainly wouldn't want their friends looking through my stuff. So I try to be respectful of that as well. And I always leave the house exactly as I left it. I want them to walk in the door, and not even know they had been gone.

*know

I had a cat sitter (who I really liked) decide to feed that outdoor strays -- with my nice (breakable) dishes and prescription cat food. She thought there was nothing wrong with that and didn't understand why this was a problem for me. Of course the strays continued to come around for a couple of weeks after I got home insisting that I feed them (which I didn't).

So, maybe a note explicitly telling the sitter whether or not to feed the strays, and if so, with what food.

We hired a pet sitter a couple of times when we took trips. She was bonded (something to check) and after interviewing her, we trusted her to behave properly. Her job was only to stop by and feed and clean up after the pets (which included 2 house rabbits and 2 cats, one of whom was on medication). She came twice a day, morning and evening, and charged a per-visit fee. I'm sure she spent a little time playing with our adorable creatures -- who wouldn't? ( ;^) ) but they spend the work day alone, so we figured they'd be ok without lots of attention for the duration of the trip/s.

Not to upset any pet sitters out there, but we did have a web cam with motion sensor software upstairs where she had no reason to go, and the video was stored so we could view it remotely -- fortunately all we saw was our cats moving around the area.

She offered to bring in the mail and to turn different lights on and off in the house for us, without any additional fees. We tipped her at the end of the trip and brought her a souvenir as well (one trip was to Egypt, so we gave her a little figurine of Bast, the cat goddess...)

I wouldn't be comfortable with a live-in sitter. Even if they were totally reliable, that's too much of an invasion of my personal space.

Currently, for weekends only so far, we have friends who come feed the pets. (We haven't taken a long trip for some time, and our old pet sitter fell off the grid -- no way to reach her any more...)

One thing I didn't see mentioned, we alerted our vet to the sitter's status and authorized her to take any of the pets in for any care she deemed necessary, with our assurances to cover the bills. This went into our records at the vet's practice, so nothing more needed to be done if something happened.

My brother once put his large dog in a kennel when he needed to travel. The elderly dog had hip problems, and at one point couldn't get up to eat or drink. Nobody noticed and the poor dog was sick and dehydrated when my brother came to get him. It was appalling. It's so hard when you don't know people to ask about a place. These days I might try for a referral from my vet...

I've pet sit in my home occasionally, and I once had an acquaintance who begged me to take her special needs pets on short notice for a month while she traveled abroad. She said she'd be happy to give me what she usually paid for boarding ($14 daily), but she didn't want to board them for such a long time. I agreed, and when she showed up to drop them off, she acknowledged that she'd only brought only enough of their highly specialized food and litter for about a week, and that she couldn't pay me quite as much as she paid for boarding because she'd decided to take her boyfriend on the trip with her. I assumed the envelope she told me was in the bag with their feed would be a fair amount regardless, but when I opened it, I discovered she'd left $25. It didn't even pay for the second week of food. Needless to say, the next time she needed a sitter, I was busy.

@MrsBerg, I don't mean to impugn all, sitters, but that's what I experienced. I did have a wonderful, reliable sitter for a couple years, but she moved away...sadly. What gets me, as I read all these posts, is that I really went the extra mile for my sitters. I paid them in advance (and paid well) so they had money for anything that came up, I alerted my vet and the emergency vet so I had open credit at each, I left loads of food for dogs and humans alike, I scrubbed the house before leaving and put fresh linens on the bed and left towels out as if setting up for a guest. I wrote out instructions for the entertainment system, the washers, the generator (for emergencies). I didn't expect them to get the trash out, water anything, or clean. I simply wanted my animals cared for. Adding insult to injury was the theft of jewelry that happened when the party giver was sitting. My fault for not locking it up, I guess, but I used to be a very trusting person. I'm not now.

Here's a question for people who use pet and house sitters: if someone, say an unemployed grad student with lots of free time, wants to start sitting but doesn't have any references (because of the just starting), what would you suggest they do?

@keightdee - Get some other references; walk people's dogs, volunteer at a vets office, get some professional references from other jobs, read up on special care some pets may require (diabetic, arthritic, special breed needs).

I'm more likely to hire someone who knows why my pugs have to wear a harness on a walk, and don't eat food with grain, than someone who just wants to love on them :)

I usually use a bonded local petsitter, but I was going to be gone for 23 days and had an old friend who wanted a break from her current living situation. I was glad someone was here 'round the clock for the kitties, but not so sure having someone who hasn't had a lot of pet experience was a great plan. When I got home, I got a blow-by-blow description of every puke and hairball that happened over the previous month. Fun!

When I left, the only two things I forgot to tell the house/pet sitter were: where the extra Cat Genie litterbox cartridge was at (the poor girl had to listen to incessant beeping for over a week) and where the extra toilet paper is kept. Other than that...I have no explanation for why the smoke detectors decided to freak out on her.

I am a professional pet sitter and a few things that I always forget to ask are:
1. When is trash day
2. Where are extra cleaning supplies
3. Where lightswitches are! (Once i just stayed somewhere in the dark because I couldn't find a light to turn on!!)
4. Any weird neighbor quirks... I saw that one was mentioned but reeeally nosey neighbors that could just be your friend seem sketchy to us

I also think that it's good to mention that you have some sort of camera on if you plan to do that. Although it is your space, finding out that someone saw you walking around in a towel singing to your cats is really uncomfortable. Just think about the little things you do that you wouldn't want caught on camera (getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom in your underwear?!)

@ Bethundra: I hear ya on that "Dyson Vacuum" issue!!! Every time I work in someone's home (cleaning, house sitting, pet sitting, plant care, organizing, etc) and I encounter a Dyson I want to scream! And my favorites are the ones who have to tell me EVERY time "Be careful with that vacuum cleaner! I paid a LOT of money for it!" For the amount of money they claim they spent on the stupid thing it should hold up to me pushing it around the carpet. (though I confess to having occasional fantasies of throwing that stupid unwieldy twisty ball out the window!). And honestly, the Dyson doesn't work any better than my Dirt Devil which has a lot fewer complicated parts to fiddle with (and no stupid ball thing!).

I pet sit for friends and this is something that bugs me about people asking friends to watch their pets. A. this is a favor to them not you. B. Leave some food or at least ask them what they like and leave a basket of things they enjoy. C. Leave some gas money, especially if they are coming from somewhere elese to watch your pet which extends their commute in the morning. C. leave plenty of food and treats for your pet. Provide parking if you live in the city. If this means you park your car in an aiport lot for a week so be it. Why make the sitter hunt and pay for a parking meter, run out at 7 am to keep car from being towed or worse to convenience you. Remember they are doing you the favor.