Sweden – Our First House Sit

Date: July 4, 2018 – July 9, 2018
Location: Tågarp, Sweden

When we made our budget, we knew that housing would be a large percentage of our expenses. In thinking of ways that could lower that expense we discovered house sitting.

When people with pets decide to go on vacation, they need to make arrangements for how their pet(s) and home will be cared for while they are gone. A kennel can be costly and stressful for pets, and worrying about whether anything in your house is going wrong while you are away is an added burden that can take away from your time off. If friends or family are not available to care for the house and pets, or you don’t want to pay someone to stop by at regular intervals, this is where house sitting comes in. The pets remain in their home environment, and in exchange for watching pets, taking in the daily mail, watering plants, and other chores, the traveling house sitters can get free housing. It’s a win-win for both the travelers and the home owners!

We are members of two house sitting websites, Nomador and TrustedHousitters where ads looking for house-sitters are posted.  If you would like to join TrustedHousitters to post an ad for someone to watch your house, or to look for house-sitting opportunities you can you this referral link to get 20% off a membership.

We were fortunate to see a house sitting ad, and be chosen, to take care of a cat in southern Sweden during the dates we were already planning to be there.

Jeanne and Asheley welcomed us into their home, leaving us with detailed instructions for everything we needed to know and ensured that we had anything that we needed during our stay.

The cat, Daphne, warmed up to us quickly.

While at the house we received a visitor as well. A hare came out most nights.

The area of Sweden we were in was in the country and the house was surrounded by beautiful wheat fields. There was a small restaurant in town, a gas station and a train station. Grocery stores were around 15 minutes away.

A couple sections of the road had a line of trees on each side.

On July 7, 2018 we took a short train ride up to Helsingborg. Helsingborg had many nice buildings.

There were also flag poles on the edge of the water. Here are the Scandinavian flags.

European flags

Across Kattegat Bay is Helsingør, Denmark.

The main reason we went to Helsingborg was because Sweden was playing n the quarter-final World Cup match that day. There were many yellow jerseys around. This was entering a park where a large screen was set up for the World Cup.

We were able to get a good view of the screen.

Many people brought lawn chairs, so during the game most people were sitting down. We sat on the pavement.

There was one person cheering for England. People were respectful even when England scored first. She did leave at half time.

Sweden lost the game to England 2 – 0. While Helsingborg has many nice buildings, we felt the city was a little more dirty than the other European cities we have been in so far.

Our house sitting experience was very positive. Daphne, is adorable and well-behaved. We got to spend time in an area of Sweden we wouldn’t have gone to otherwise.