Why are we using a nanny

We live in an area in the Southwest where many homes are vacant due to foreclosures and the economic downturn. Last year when we went to our vacation home in Mexico, we left the house in the care of our next door neighbor, Fred, who would tend our lawn and pick up our mail and some newspapers. We put the lights in the house on timers to make it look like someone was living there. Our security alarm system was checked to be in good working order. We even left our car in the driveway instead of the garage. Our vacation was enjoyable because we knew that Fred and his children would watch over our property and make sure our outside cat had food and water every day. We had done the same for them when they went to Disneyland for a week last year. This year they were gone, the victim of a delinquent mortgage.

At first we asked friends and neighbors if they knew someone trustworthy who could sit for us. It seemed like no one could fit into our schedule. One day we were talking to our travel agent and she recommended that we go online using a service to locate a babysitter. He had used a service to find someone to take care of her house in Cabo San Lucas last winter and it worked well. He gave us the website for a house-sitting service. At first we saw a lot of listings for caregivers looking for jobs in our area and thought maybe we’d contact a few and see what happened. When we realized that homeowners could sign up for free and our email address would be hidden, we knew this was the way to go.

The first day we had the listing online, we received 13 responses from caregivers. It seems that as soon as we were listed, the service sent an email alert to all of their registered caregivers who were looking for work in my area. June and I spent the next week contacting these caregivers and qualifying them for our position. We wanted the babysitter to pay for all the utilities in the house since we were going to be away for 4 months. We use the home care agreement provided by the service to finalize the deal. After checking their references and doing a criminal background check, we were satisfied that Barbara and Leon from Chicago would take good care of our home. We were comfortable. They arrived 2 days before our scheduled departure for Baja. After many emails and phone conversations, we felt that they were old friends. Leon was studying for the BAR exam and Barbara was writing a textbook for architects. Housekeeping, which they had done before in California, allowed them to save money to pay for Leon’s education. When we left they were friendly to our cat and knew everything we needed to run our house. We were given a utility deposit and headed south for our vacation knowing we had done everything we could to safeguard our home. Now that we have arrived in Mexico, we plan to find a housekeeper, before we leave, to safeguard our house here.

After all, peace of mind is priceless, right?