Tired of waiting in? Home Buddy makes it a thing of the past

Home stay: house sitters are helping busy people get on with their lives

Have you ever relished the ease and convenience of ordering goods online, only to rue your decision when you found yourself sitting home waiting for a delivery to take place ‘between 7am and 7pm’? Or had to cancel an important meeting because your boiler packed up and needed the services of a plumber? If so, an innovative way to keep you from being housebound might be of interest.

Hackney resident Fionn Nixon has established a short term ‘house sitting’ service called Home Buddy.  The service provides vetted house sitters to help out busy people so they don’t have to take time out of work to wait for plumbers, deliveries, tradespeople and such like.

On average householders spend three working days per year waiting at home for pre-booked deliveries and workmen to arrive. The BBC estimates that this adds up to more than 800 million hours of annual leave spent indoors waiting.

The Home Buddy service allows people to save that time instead for holidays. The service provides CRB checked house sitters who can be booked for slots of three hours or more. There is even a free key pick-up service if required. While they wait, the house sitters are also happy to do ad-hoc jobs such as watering plants, feeding pets, and general tidy-ups.

Borne from his own experiences of having to book time off to wait for tradespeople, the service was started by Fionn in March. “In the current climate, bosses are often unhappy to see employees take paid leave for such occurrences,” he said.

“Employees can either feel uncomfortable asking or don’t want to deal with the inconvenience of waiting for deliveries or tradesmen. Then you have contractors on daily or hourly rates who instantly lose money

when taking such time out. And in addition to this, you have clients such as landlords who are often located some distance from the property they let out.” he continued.

Fionn already has a long list of clients. He believes the service is particularly popular in Hackney

for a reason: “The people of Hackney are a busy bunch and often open to new ideas / concepts – it’s great that the business has been embraced in its birth place. Comfort and trust is at the heart of our service.”

For more information go to Home Buddy or email info@home-buddy.co.uk.