‘We’ve found seniors to be the most reliable and dependable employees’ : Seniors Star in Roles as Reliable House Sitters

Ethel Sogliuzzo, 71, had just climbed over an 8-foot fence surrounding a posh Mount Helix estate. Her next challenge was to make it up to an unlocked second-floor bathroom window.

“I found an old, rickety ladder,” she said, “and somehow I got up there, opened up the window and squeezed myself through. Nothing like making a grand entrance, head first, right onto the dresser.”

It was all in a day’s work for Sogliuzzo, who along with her husband, Frank, 70, is a professional house sitter.

“I locked myself out when I went to the mailbox,” she said. “And there was no other way to get back in. I used muscles that I didn’t even know I had.”

Sogliuzzo had only a few scratches to show for her creative re-entry. But as a result, she crocheted a key holder for her wrist and now always carries an extra door key with her.

For Ralph Cabanas, 75, entry into one client’s home was even more difficult.

“I took the family dog outside in the yard to make friends with it, and initially everything seemed fine,” he said. “But the dog would not let me back in the house. I learned later that it was trained not to let any stranger in.”

Cabanas managed to give the dog the slip and sneak in through the front door. But once inside the animal followed him everywhere, nipping at his heels.

“We finally had to make an arrangement with the owner’s daughter for her to come and put the dog in its room every day,” he said.

Seniors ‘Delightful’

The Sogliuzzos and Cabanas are among about 20 seniors ranging in age from 65 to 82 who are employed by Home Sitting Service of San Diego. The service is run locally by Pat Richardson, whose uncle founded the business 14 years ago in Denver. It expanded into San Diego in 1984 and employs seniors almost exclusively.

“That’s because I require our sitters to be on the premises 22 out of the 24 hours of each day,” said Richardson. “Unless someone’s retired, they can’t do that. Besides, seniors are absolutely delightful as employees. And my clients trust them. They figure they must be in it for good reasons and not to find out what they have in their homes so they can come back and rip them off.”

Her sentiments are echoed by Rich Ritcheson, who, along with his wife, Charlie, created House Sitters International a year ago. It is one of the other local sitting agencies providing this service, although many individuals perform house sitting duties on their own.

“We’ve found seniors to be the most reliable and dependable employees you can get, and we use them exclusively,” said Ritcheson. Their years of experience give a lot of comfort to clients.”

Richardson’s elderly employees say house sitting suits them well and is a good tonic for boredom.

The service has about an equal number of married couples who work together and widowed individuals who work alone.

“Frank and I didn’t want to just stay home and do nothing,” said Sogliuzzo. “Before we started this, I had just retired from nine years as a Salvation Army dining room hostess, and I missed being involved.”

“It’s a way for us to keep active,” her husband agreed. “We’re not the type to go to senior clubs and we don’t belong to a bowling team or anything like that. So this is perfect.”

Clients are usually people who travel a lot and need someone to water plants and lawns and care for pets.

One regular client, Monica Shomburg of Escondido, said she and her husband enjoy visiting their native Germany frequently, “but every time we tried to get a decent house sitter it turned into a disaster.”

The final straw was employing a trusted German exchange student and then returning to find their pool and yard in disarray and hearing stories from neighbors about wild parties.

“That did it,” Shomburg said. “Since then we’ve used the house sitting services and we have the same couple sit each time. It has worked beautifully.”

Richardson emphasizes that a love of animals is a strong prerequisite for her house sitters.

The Sogliuzzos like their clients’ pets so much that each time they sit, Ethel takes snapshots of the animals. One set goes to the home owners and another set goes into her permanent photo album of client pets.

Pets Often Challenging

The couple had their hands full at a recent job in Santee.

“The owners had six rabbits, eight finches, two turtles and two dogs,” Ethel said.

“They were all pretty easy to care for except the rabbits. We had to clean their cages every day and since one died of the heat last year, the owner instructed us to make sure the cages were cool at all times. In order to do that, Frank constantly put wet towels across their cages and put blocks of ice in with them. We even took one of the rabbits to the vet when it needed it.”

Cabanas, a widower, especially enjoys taking walks with owner’s pets. He recently house-sat in Beverly Hills when another sitter canceled at the service’s Los Angeles branch.

“I had the time of my life walking the family’s bull terrier around those classy neighborhoods up there,” he said.

He’s also quite familiar with Rancho Bernardo on foot. His companion--a 16-year-old poodle, “the walkingest dog I’ve ever met,” he said. “The dog just won’t quit.”

Two cockateels at a San Diego home are among his unusual house-sitting friends.

“Once they got used to me they’d perch on my shoulders and go everywhere with me,” he said. “One even watches the entire MacNeil/Leher news report on my arm with me each evening.”

Many of the sitters especially enjoy companion-care assignments.

Richardson said these clients are usually families who have a member with Alzheimer’s disease or elderly people who need relief from caring for a mate who is sick or recovering from an operation.

“These assignments often turn out to be very personally fulfilling for my sitters,” Richardson said.

Gwen Day, 74, a retired real estate broker and full-time sitter, has become close friends with a wheelchair-bound woman 11 years older than herself “who really has no one else that cares about her.”

“My assignment was to be with her two days a week,” Day said. “We ended up becoming fast friends with a lot in common to talk about. The only time that poor soul gets out is when I take her to lunch or to a senior center.”

The lady’s daughter and stepson, who pay for the service, do not visit.

Even though the assignment is long over, the two still visit and phone each other.

“The little place they have for her is not designed for a person in a wheelchair,” Day said. “So whenever she gets into a bind she calls me for help.”

Richardson said that often her employees become good friends with clients.

“Most of them have their favorite sitters who they choose each time they go away, and eventually the sitters become almost a part of the family themselves,” she said.

Right Chemistry

Before a new job, Richardson selects a potential sitter who she thinks is best suited for the client. Sitters are screened and she knows their preferences and what they will not tolerate.

“Not much bothers them,” she said, “although a few don’t like to take assignments with families who have birds as pets. And none of them like snakes. But we rarely have a demand for snake sitters.”

Richardson then accompanies the sitter on a preliminary visit with the client and, if the chemistry seems right, leaves a few minutes later while the parties work out the details of what tasks need to be done.

Richardson makes it clear to clients that her employees are sitters and not domestic workers. But there can be surprises.

Day went to sit at a University City home and found it so filthy she had to eat at a fast-food restaurant.

“Two weeks before the assignment I met with the owners and they promised to clean up the mess, but they didn’t touch it,” Day said. “You won’t believe how they left it. Dirty bedding and clothing were piled up in corners. Inches-thick food and grease were caked on the stove and kitchen floor. I made the mistake of opening the refrigerator once. My God, the smell that came out! I didn’t get near it again. Obviously, they wanted me to clean the place up.”

Day stayed for the duration of the assignment but slept in a corner of the living room in her own sleeping bag. Each sitter is bonded and insured by the service, with basic rates at $24 a day for house sitting and $50 a day for companion care.

On one recent occasion a client got much more than he bargained for.

Ethel Sogliuzzo, one of Richardson’s stars, took a companion-care assignment to care for a man’s 70-year-old wife who had kneecap surgery and was temporarily disabled.

“She and I had a great time together, even when we got stuck in the shower,” Sogliuzzo said. “After we got out of that jam, I gave her sponge baths instead.”

Sogliuzzo assisted with physical therapy and bathed and cooked for her. But during the course of the nine-day assignment it became painfully clear that the woman would have preferred her husband to carry out those tasks.

The 74-year-old husband claimed he was too nervous and too old to provide proper care.

“Well, I knew how much she wanted him to be with her, so I told him right out that just because he was 74 didn’t mean his hands were tied. And I proceeded to show him how to do all the things he was paying me to do. He hated it at first but then he gradually realized he really could take care of her. When that happened his wife was overjoyed. I felt real good when I was able to leave that assignment early.”