WriterinResidence

About this sitter

I´m a writer with a PhD in philosophy, living in the city-centre of an industrial town in the South-West of Germany. Fortunately, this town is situated near beautiful Heidelberg and its famous old university. I have a lot of cultural interests (theatre, films, history, literature, classical music, languages, travelling around the world...), but to realize my ambitious book projects (historical biographies such as of Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Luther or Henry VIII.), I need some rest and some inspiration from time to time and some distance to my personal situation at home: a calm and peaceful environment, a beautiful landscape, if possible some wild nature, some animals - things, I do not have at home. As a house sit, I prefer the countryside to big cities, places as quiet and peaceful as possible. Concerning the country, I´m very flexible. Being multilingual (German, English, French, Spanish and some basics of Swedish), I normally will not have any communication problems, wherever I stay.

Why they want to house sit

Living in a big city can be very stressful - the more, if you have (as I had) a noisy environment and noisy neighbours.
The opportunity to stay on a peaceful place for some time of the year, for a couple of days or weeks, is just a wonderful thing for me to get some rest, to read, reflect and write or prepare my new projects.
I love to be in the countryside, and I love pets and animals. I am orderly and reliable, and I like taking responsibility for a house and taking care of nice pets like cats, dogs, birds or whatever. Time and place is basically open and depends on my plannings here. Normally, I can announce my availability a couple of weeks in advance. The destination depends on my financial situation - whether or not I can afford an expensive oversee-flight at the moment.

Their experience

Yes, I have plenty of "house sitting"-experiences - mostly in the course of personal recommendations (friends of friends of friends who needed someone to care for the dogs and the house during their holidays...). In my student´s days, I cared for a house in Paris and for the parrot "Gaston". Later on, there were two little dogs in an appartment in Seoul/ South-Corea. In 2006, I spent two nice weeks in Ingolstadt/Germany with "Jack" the Jack Russel and years later with "Kookie", the greyhound, in a beautiful wooden house in Bavaria. The house- and pet-owners were always satisfied with my caring, and I loved coming back.

What can they bring to the assignment

Reliability, love of pets, orderliness and a great interest for new places and people, for new cultural experiences.