This is the blog section of the Bill The Housesitter site. See above tabs for ‘About’, ‘Availability’, ‘Contact’ and ‘References’.

My house-sit in Wavell Heights was one of a few I’d lined up while still in Sydney, so it was great that a few people like Samantha and Dan were prepared to take me on, sight unseen, before I had even arrived in the great south east of Queensland back in February 2016.

(And it’s also a testament to the value of collecting these references, and I offer my sincere thanks to everyone who has provided them for me.)

Like a good one-third to two-thirds of the places I visit, I’d never heard of Wavell Heights before I lobbed there in June 2016. Put a gun to my head and there’s no way I could have pointed to it on a map of Greater Brisbane.

It’s not too far north of the Brisbane CBD, a pleasant walk to nearby Nundah shops and railway station, a short drive to Toombul Shopping Centre, and I even walked to Chermside one evening to go see a fillum with friends.

If you’ve never heard of Toombul Shopping Centre, chances are you’ve seen it at some stage on the nightly news. It’s one of those places that perennially cops it in the neck from flooding when the rains teem and the waters rise!

In other, higher parts of the region, I highly recommend The Spotted Cod fish and chip shop at Wavell Heights!

Like many house-sits, I turned up a few hours after the owners had left, so there’s always just a moment’s hesitation to see how the canine client reacts to a stranger on their patch.

No problems with Gus, the sharpei cross staffie cross mastiff cross wolfhound!

He was quick to adopt me, quick to engage me in some ball chasing and tug o’ war, and quick to chill at my feet. Seeing an animal instantaneously be mega-relaxed in my company is always a good sign.

Walking him was… challenging!

He certainly had a very keen sense of where he wanted to go. And while he might be a pack member in the house and yard, out on the street he is Alpha Dog Male with capitals A, D and M, and he’s not about to let any other canines be in any doubt about that!

We confined our perambulations to busy streets with lots of background noise and non-doggy distractions. But we did have a lot of fun running amok in the backyard where I videoed a short vignette for my Bill The Housesitter Facebook page:

Despite being in the heart of suburbia, I was able to find a few distractions for my four-week stay, including hooking up with a group that went for a walk around the Nundah area every Monday night and then went for sushi. In fact, the first night I turned up it was blowing a gale, so we just did sushi! That was a first for me as I’d never actually eaten in a sushi train/sushi house before.

I also did a couple of days’ work up the road in Geebung at the warehouse of one of the big national op shop charities. That was an eye-opener. I’ve done retail at a couple of places like Vinnies and Neighbours Aid, but warehouse work was another thing altogether. It was hard yakka, but the volume we processed was breath-taking.

I was there for the family’s return from the northern Americas, and they gave me this much-appreciated reference:

Bill house-sat for us for a period of 4 weeks. During that time Bill looked after our dog Gus and our budgie.

We can highly recommend Bill for anyone with pets. Bill sent us some updates and photos and we could tell that our dog felt comfortable and was being very well cared for.

Bill continued to walk Gus daily despite having some challenges with Gus’ unruly behaviour on the lead and unpredictability around other dogs. I’m sure anyone else would have given up!

On return from vacation our house was very clean and the yard had been very well maintained.

Bill is very easy to communicate with and made all the arrangements very easy. We felt totally comfortable having Bill in our house whilst we were away. Bill would be our first choice for house and pet sitting during any future vacations.

Samantha and Dan, Wavell Heights (Brisbane), Queensland.