This topic sort of popped up in the Attachments forum, of all places, over on TBN, so I thought I'd give it a more proper home here. I apologize for how incredibly wordy I get here, but it's been a while since I've had time to do a real post.

I mentioned in passing that I had recently acquired a new caretaker for my Sierra foothills property, and the questions and comments soon began. Here's my situation --

Although I live in the San Francisco East Bay Area, I own 42 acres in the country, about a 2-1/2 hour drive away. It was my parents' retirement place, but now that they are gone, it has been passed onto me. I have always loved the place, but living there is not in the cards for the immediate future. Reasons for that spawned another thread on TBN a couple of years ago, but let's move on to the caretaker thing for now.

Because of the distance, my family and I only make it to the property a couple of weekends a month. When we're there, all I do is maintenance chores. That's not such a bad thing 'cuz it was the justification for me buying a tractor with my wife's blessing. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] Even with the tractor though, I've been losing ground in terms of keeping up the place. It's all I can do to maintain control over the weeds, brush, tree limbs 'n' such just to meet fire safety regulations. The pond, well system, fences, decks, etc. have been neglected for years and I just don't have the bandwidth to stay on top of them. There is also the issue of just plain keeping an eye on the place. There's too much there (including a fabulous wood shop, plus Mom's dog and cat) to just leave abandoned for weeks at a time.

Solution -- an on-site caretaker. We had previously built out my dad's former tractor barn and converted it to a little 2-bedroom house when it became necessary to hire someone to take care of Mom in her final years. Mom had refused to allow anybody to live her own house, so having a second one just a hundred feet away seemed like a logical solution. It was several years later when I acquired my tractor and realized the irony of what we had done. Oh well, the tractor fits in the wood shop okay. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

The lady who served my mom so well for nearly 5 years was unfortunately not qualified to meet our needs after Mom passed away last year, so we had to let her go and search for the "right" person for the job. We advertised for a live-in handyman on a "work for rent" basis. The more they could do, the less the rent would be. Amazing how many offers we got from people who just wanted to live there and pay full rent. Of those who were actually handy, most had full-time jobs and wouldn't be around very much. We were hoping for maybe a newly retired couple where at least one of them would be home to look after the pets during the day.

Anyway, we lucked out big time with a young fella who runs his own tree care and landscaping service. His dad was a carpenter, and he himself spent time working for a plumbing contractor. Add to that the fact that he was raised with orange tractors, owns, operates and repairs all of his own equipment, and I'd say we hit the jackpot.

On top of everything else, his wife works the evening shift at the local casino (I didn't even realize we had one), so she is home most of the day, and she loves animals. We now have somebody on the property about 22 hours a day.

We paid for a full background check and they both came back squeaky clean. Turns out the casino runs heavy-duty background checks themselves every six months on their employees. The wife I mentioned is a high-level cashier and has to maintain the highest rating in order to keep her job. This couple is also very active and respected in their church. Does it get any better than that?

On the job just three weeks now, and on the trip up there this last weekend, I found the area around the caretaker's house half lanscaped -- prepped for a lawn, veggie garden, new deck railings and external automated light fixtures installed. Several trees had been removed to make way for a sort of yard beautification project. All of this was pre-approved by me. I just didn't expect to see it happen so fast.

Oh -- I forgot to mention that he also did all of the inside prep I was planning on doing before they moved in. Patched all holes in the wall left by the previous caretaker (she loved to hang stuff on the walls), fresh coat of paint on all walls, ceiling and trim, relocated ceiling fan and installed a new light fixture.

The pond is pretty dried out right now, so he was also able to replace the rotting support posts for the dock with fine new pressure treated timbers. Set 'em real nice in concrete, too.

I found a good portion of the dog fence had been replaced, including a brand new gate built from scratch. The garden shed had been nicely cleaned out and new lights and outlets installed so he could set up his own little shop (part of our agreement). Enough for the first three weeks? There's more.

My dad had left some gardening equipment, but none of it had been touched for the last 12 years. I figured anything with a motor on it was a lost cause at this point, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The new caretaker had rebuilt the engine on the portable water pump and the small chipper/shredder. I heard them run for the first time in my life. (Side note -- the chipper that I thought was useless is considerably more efficient than I gave it credit for.)

The guy sounded apologetic that he hadn't gotten the rototiller running yet. He has his own, so he was hoping it was okay to get to it later. I told him it was okay.

In the mean time, his wife had cleaned the inside of the main house, including shampooing the carpets (more than we had bargained for).

THREE WEEKS!!! They are living there rent and utility free, but I think we are getting the best end of the deal.

The question I am putting out to y'all (if you've read this far) is what kind of arrangements and/or experiences have you had with property caretakers? I'm obviously very happy so far, but we're just starting. Any tips or warnings would be greatly appreciated.