Home discoveries

I look after homes around the city. From time to time people give me a call and I go and look after their animals or plants while they are away. Over the years I’ve realized a few things that are pretty essential when it comes to going into a new place.

Find out where the can opener, scissors and cleaning supplies are kept. This includes garbage bags.

Everything else you can kind of figure out on your own but if you don’t have a clue where to start looking for those 3 things it can be rather frustrating (especially looking for the cleaning supplies which are usually time sensitive). You might be asking why the can opener is first in my list? It took me an extra half hour one time to make a simple can of soup because I didn’t know that they had their can opener mounted on the underside of their cabinet.

Stepping into someone’s life is always interesting for me because I get to see what people take for granted as normal. I always ask what people can think of as a little quirk to their home, which has had some pretty interesting results. My favourite one has got to be the phones that didn’t work when it rained. Unfortunately I happen to be staying during a particularly wet summer.

On occasion I get to really enjoy something unique to the area. Most recently I was looking after a home and discovered the best idea for a residential area: loading zones.

The more time I spent there the more I wanted them on every street. I’m all about efficiency of use. Having the ability to run back into the house to retrieve something I had forgotten saved me a lot of hassle in terms of needing to find a parking spot. Additionally my pet peeve, people disrupting the flow of traffic by double parking to pick someone up, was eliminated.

For a while there looking after homes had become a fairly consistent thing. People going away for weeks leaving me to look after their place had friends of mine asking if I will ever give up my apartment to do house hopping full time. But that way there wouldn’t be any transitions. The feeling of a job well done comes from handing their home back to them in as close to the original state as possible with very happy animals. But it is actually by going home after that I get enjoy more fully the life I have and my own brand of quirks. And of course my own bed! You always appreciate your own bed over others… and if that is not the case for you I suggest you invest in a mattress better suited to you.

What is something unique to your home that you love?
What is a unique trait that you would warn people about?