Joany & Allan

Hello! Good to meet you. We are Allan and Joany.

We've been living in a rural community in New Zealand since 2008. During this time, we’ve had a lot of contact and experience with a diverse range of non-humans.

In 2024 we started house sitting via the Kiwi House Sitters website (affiliated with Aussie House Sitters). We often look after the homes and animals of neighbours, friends, and family while they’re away, who we can provide references from. Sometimes this is a live-in arrangement, and other times it isn’t. We’ve looked after cats, dogs, chickens, pigs, rabbits, sheep, and ducks. On our own property, we’ve kept bees, and raised cows and chickens.

Allan grew up on a North Island farmlet, and loves cooking, reading, and fixing things. Joany grew up in Melbourne, and loves gardening, recycling, and cups of tea with nice people.

We’re reliable, practical, outdoorsy people. We love animals, and long walks (on the beach, street, in the bush or in a park - wherever). We're good communicators, likeable, tidy, and respectful of other people’s belongings.

We haven't spent as much time in Australia since Covid as we would have liked to, where we have a close network of family and friends. House sitting is a way for us to reconnect with people and places, spend quality time with animals, and be useful to others doing some travelling of their own.

Caring for the environment is very important to us. We recently started a not-for-profit called The Good Carbon Farm, with a purpose to tangibly mitigate climate change. Our work sometimes takes us to different places. Being able to house sit during these times contributes to making our work more sustainable, minimises our carbon footprint, and gives us more good stories to tell.

We look forward to meeting you and your pets in person, or over a video call. :)