Hiya! My husband, Christopher, and I are PhD students at Duke University and are travelling to Washington State for an internship. We are looking for someone to watch our house while we are away for around 4 months.
We do rent our home and our Landlord is perfectly fine with house-sitting arrangements, though he may ask the sitter to do a regular rental type check for his own protection. We have no pets (our cats will be going with us) and we really just need someone in the house for security and maintenance reasons. We have two potted plants outside, a rosemary and sage, that we'd like watered every so often. General upkeep like dusting weekly, vacuuming, and oiling our butcher block counter is expected, but nothing beyond that. We have a botvac, MO (WALL-E anyone?), that does a light vacuum 3x/week but we like to do a thorough vacuum once weekly to get the rugs and any dustbunnies MO misses. There will be no vehicle here for the sitter to use as we are driving for the internship but there is a bus stop at the front of the neighborhood which connects to the Durham line and form there, Chapel Hill, Cary, and Raleigh.
The house is a 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath 2-story end-unit townhouse with lots of natural light in a quiet neighborhood. Close to Duke, Durham, and within driving distance of several other cities for you to explore. One bedroom is our main bedroom, one is an exercise room/guest room, and the last is a dedicated office. For those that work from home, our internet is a 1000Mbps subscription (with speedtest returning 935Mbps for a wired connection and 854Mbps for wireless). Full kitchen with gas stove and all kinds of doodads if you are into baking. We have a television but do not pay for any subscription or cable services. We also have an Xbox 360 and a Nintendo Wii for those that like video games My husband and I are big old-school gamers, Halo 1-2, Thief, Skyrim, Halflife, oldies but goldies.. :) ). We are bibliophiles and our living room resembles more a library or small-town coffee shop than anything else. We have fiction (mostly a small smattering of sci-fi, fantasy, and urban fantasy), Classics (Sherlock Holmes, Homer, Shakespeare, Wilde, Tolkien, etc.), History (military history & Medieval history), and Science (textbooks galore as both my husband and I are scientists/engineers as well as a host of more interesting books to the public on topics like string theory, gravity, time, black holes, NASA missions, and things of that nature).
We are looking for a responsible, non-smoker with references and no pets who likes the quiet. Ideally, a fellow bibliophile who would take good care of our collection. :D
Pictures are of Christopher (my husband), Elizabeth (myself), and our two roommates, Ailin (tabby) and Zephyr (DLH). Room images are of the office (with two glass L-shaped desks), the living room and patio area, living room with dining area and bay window, kitchen, and exercise/morning room. The exercise/morning room will be the sitter’s room, replacing the grey bench with a queen mattress and frame with drawers for storage. Yes, those are swords you see in the pictures on our walls! We are both deep into history and Christopher is an Instructor-At-Arms for La Verdadera Destreza. They are for decoration only. Please contact if you have any questions! Looking forward to speaking with you!
Some quick details:
DWELLING: Internet, Wifi, Air conditioner, Heater, Dishwasher, Street parking
SECURITY CAMERAS: No
LOCALE: Suburban (Shopping, Sport, Nature, Quiet, Family, Historical)
NEARBY: Buses, Supermarket, Shopping Centre, Golf, Gym/Yoga, Restaurants/Cafes, Pubs/Bars, Parks, Art/Theatre, Live Music, Fishing/Boating