Karen and Andrej
We are kiwis Andrej and Karen Brummer from New Zealand, 40 and 39 years old, both non-smokers. We've been married for 13 years. We're animal lovers, and both work online so are free to live anywhere in the world.
We live in our own home in the far north of New Zealand.
Prior to moving back in to our own home, we were full time house sitters for over 3 years. We live a very quiet lifestyle, and prefer peaceful nature to cities.
We have a daughter who has grown up in house sits and absolutely loves animals. We remain fully respectful of your home and guarantee your home will be left as we found it.
We started our house sitting in Asia, as we were based in Laos for several years in a small rural town in the north; Luang Namtha. Here we set up a training restaurant where we teach young local people how to speak English, and how to prepare western food and drinks. The restaurant now runs completely by itself, with senior staff now having taken over the training of the new staff, so we're free to be where we please.
We're originally from Matakana, New Zealand (Karen) and Orewa, New Zealand (Andrej) and have family still in the Rodney / north / west Auckland area. Karen grew up on a farm / lifestyle block with cats, dogs, goats, cows, horses, chickens, fish, rabbits - a real menagerie and Andrej has been around this lifestyle also for the past 20 years that we've been together.
We've had house sitting assignments so far in New Zealand, Australia, Thailand and Indonesia, taking care of dogs, cats, goats, sheep, lambs, birds, horses, cows, calves, fish and chickens, ducks and doves. We've also taken care of home and gardens, with no pets, where an owner has needed a place to be lived in and lawns mowed / gardens weeded. We're happy to provide references from the owners of all of these animals and homes. Although we're new to this website, we've done a lot of house and pet sitting via other sites and as time has progressed, by word of mouth also - where people we've petsit for have recommended us to their friends.
As homeowners ourselves, we understand the worry of entrusting your home and pets to someone you haven't met before, and we'd be happy to arrange for you to chat with any of the previous home owners we've sat for to put your mind at ease.
Currently we're living in our own home in the far north of NZ.
Prior to this we took care of 1beautiful Keeshond dog (3rd time at this home) September- November 2019.
1 cat and 2 chickens near Kerikeri, New Zealand June until mid September 2019.
4 dogs and 2 cats in Hunterville, New Zealand early April - late May 2019
1 horse, 13 cows plus 9 calves born while we were here, 29 sheep, 4 dogs and 4 cats in Matawai, New Zealand early November 2018 - early April March 2019.
1 poodle and 2 cats in Krabi, Thailand late August - mid September 2018
2 standard poodles, a cat and 2 chickens in Pakiri, New Zealand early May - late August 2018
1 Keeshond dog in Matheson's Bay, New Zealand early April - late April 2018
1 cat in Algies Bay, New Zealand late October - early April 2018
2 dogs, 1 cat and 3 chickens in Kaiwaka, New Zealand late September - late October 2017.
1 dog in Warkworth, New Zealand mid - late September 2017.
1 Golden Retreiver dog, 2 cats, 2 horses, 30 angora goats, 4 ducks, chickens and doves in Tauranga, New Zealand August - mid September 2017.
1 dog, 3 cows (plus one calf born while we were there), 15 sheep (plus 9 lambs born while we were there) and a dozen chickens and ducks in Te Hana, New Zealand June - end of July 2017.
1 beautiful Keeshond dog in Leigh, New Zealand mid April - early June - this is where our baby girl was born
2 Griffon dogs and 2 dozen chickens and ducks in Matakana, New Zealand late March - mid April
Home and garden in Titirangi, New Zealand mid - late January 2017
1 Burmese cat in Havelock North, New Zealand late December 2016 - mid January 2017
2 cats and 6 chickens in Army Bay, New Zealand for 2 weeks early - mid December 2016
4 dogs in Chiang Mai, Thailand mid - late November 2016
3 cats in Bali, Indonesia for 2 months mid September - mid November 2016
4 dogs in Chiang Mai for 5 weeks early August - mid September 2016 - these people loved us and invited us back to sit again in November.
1 dog in Bangkok, Thailand for 6 weeks late June - early August 2016
1 dog and 1 cat in Chiang Mai May 2016
1 elderly dog requiring daily medication and 4 short walks per day in Bangkok for 2 weeks April 2016 - owner impressed with our care of their dog so invited us back for 6 weeks June - August.
References available from all previous sits.
We prefer longer terms sits, and do need good wifi to continue running our online businesses while at your place. However, if we're in your area, we're happy to do short term house and pet sitting too.
Our online businesses are in the areas of Saltwater Aquariums (Andrej is a trained biological scientist), and after 5 years of running online businesses we now also help other businesses to improve their sales using social media.
We miss having pets, (our home is in a kiwi sanctuary, which is amazing, but means we're not allowed pets) so it's a lot of fun for us to be able to take care of other peoples animals and also provide peace of mind for owners while they're away.