About Melissa & Rick

How did we get started as pet and house sitters?

As global pet and house sitters, we travel the world looking after your pets and homes when you go on your adventures. This type of travel provides us with opportunities to meet some pretty cool people and their pets and to experience cities, regions, countries, and cultures in a deeper way than traditional holiday travel.

Before becoming pet and house sitters ourselves, we booked pet and house sitters to care for our cats and home. When we moved to Europe, we no longer had the luxury of trusted local friends and family to look after our cats when we traveled. A few weeks after we moved to Spain from Thailand, we needed a sitter to look after our three rescue cats, and thankfully discovered Trusted HouseSitters.

Our first sitters were a dream: they were classic cat lovers, great communicators, and they left our home in better condition than we left it for them. They shared their pet sitting stories with us, and it didn’t take long to realize that we could also become pet and house sitters.

At our home in New Zealand, we operated a self-contained apartment in our house through Airbnb and welcomed many international guests. These experiences have given us great respect and understanding of staying in other people’s homes and following their guidelines.

Just as our first sitters assured us that our cats and home would be well cared for while we were away, we want you to feel secure and confident that your pets and home will be looked after as if they are our pets and home.

We are grateful for every opportunity we have to look after pets and homes for other folks. Immersion in a new location through pet and house sitting delivers great adventures, brilliant memories, and some pretty hilarious (and some sad) stories to share.

If you have a Trusted HouseSitters account, you can see your profile and reviews here:

Trusted House Sitters

Tell me more about Melissa & Rick

Rick is an engineer by training, and he loves to fix things and make them better (ideally faster, if that’s possible). Rick was born in Alaska grew up overseas in Germany, Pakistan, Ghana, and Greece. He can communicate in German, French, Greek, and Spanish, and isn’t shy about talking to anyone about anything. He has extensive experience with horses, sheep, exotic birds, large snakes, dogs, and cats.

Melissa is a planner; she’s happy to get her hands dirty in the garden, to play with any animal, and then have them cuddle with her. She loves donuts, sparkling wine, and swings. She was born in Colorado, has lived in eight US states and five countries. She grew up with cats and a dog, and the occasional fish, hamster and hermit crab.

Together we have lived in four countries, traveled to over fifty more, and have dual New Zealand and US citizenship. We are currently based in Barcelona, Spain where we have lived since July 2017. We have clean Spanish drivers licenses and have experience with both left- and right-hand driving.

So far, on our journey, we’ve had the privilege of looking after cats, dogs, goats, geese, chickens, snakes, fish, and donkeys. We are happy to say that all pets and homeowners have asked us to return for repeat sits at every single sit we’ve completed. Happy pets and happy humans are our goals.

The pet and house sitting lifestyle has introduced us to some lifelong friends, both human and animals. Maybe we can be your pet’s next new friend?

Places we’ve lived in or explored:

North America: Barbados, Belize, Canada, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, United States of America, US Virgin Islands

South America: Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela

Europe: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lativia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vatican City

Asia: Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam

Oceania: Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea

What Is House and Pet Sitting?