Raving fans

Reference: Emilia’s Home and Pet Care

To whom it may concern:

For a number of years Emilia of Emilia’s Home and Pet Care has looked after my pets when I have been away on holiday.

She always does a fabulous job and I feel very confident leaving my animals (cats and chooks) in her care.

I have complete trust in Emilia entering my home and have entrusted her with a set of house keys so we don’t need to organize a ‘key pickup’ before I go away.

She is extremely reliable and always responds very promptly to any communication by phone and email.

I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending her service to any potential client. I would be more than happy to discuss this further over the phone or e-mail … at any time.

Yours sincerely,
M.R. (Dr)

We have been using Emilia to look after our 2 Labradors for the past 3 years for varying lengths of time the last being for nearly 4 weeks.

Previous use of Kennels badly stressed the old female Lab so only home care is an option for this old dog. Since Emilia has started looking after our kids we have come home to happy and fit dogs.

We have found Emilia to be very accommodating with our requests (topping up water for the birds etc.) and usually going beyond what we have asked in clearing mail and watering plants during her visits. We don’t believe you can ask for much more than that.

When researching the option of home pet care with Emilia’s Home and Pet Care against the cost of putting our dogs in kennels and other home pet care businesses, we found Emilia to be very cost competitive if not unbeatable. Of coarse the hidden bonus is they are getting responsible personalized care.

I would not hesitate to recommend Emilia’s Home & Pet Care to any friends and associates for their pet care. In actual fact I have and others have been very happy with the outcome.

Michelle and Scott Harrison, Mangerton.

To Whom it May Concern:

I have known Emilia for more than 10 years. She has always done an excellent job caring for my dogs.

Emilia is very well organised , efficient , and has an excellent rapport with my dogs.

I highly recommend Emilia for the caring of pets and homes .

If you have any questions , please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely ,

Phillip Syer

We have used Emilia’s Home & Pet and SO Clean, for dog minding, domestic home cleaning and cleaning our holiday letting “Sadies Port Kembla”.

When we are unable to do the work ourselves since 2010. Emilia and her team are always efficient, professional and we know we can rely on them to do a good job, helping our family and small business .

We know if we ask Emilia it will get done, and we don’t need to worry about our guests, or our own home.

A great service for people who need to keep on top of things.

Ann and Tim,  Sadies Port Kembla”.

Life & style

Love (of pets) for sale
No time to clean the house, cook dinner or walk the dog?
Relax … help, at a price, is always at hand.

Emilia De Sousa’s job is quite literally a walk in the park. With clients that jump for joy when she arrives, flexible work hours and plenty of fresh air and time to exercise, the Fairy Meadow woman is certainly not complaining.

Ms De Sousa packed in a nine-to-five office job to establish Emilia’s Home & Pet Care, a home and pet minding service that has operated in the Illawarra since the end of May

For a fair price, you can buy your four-legged friend some quality time – whether it be a brisk walk, a few games or just some good old-fashioned companionship.

For in today’s busy world, Ms De Sousa said, pets often missed out on the attention they craved.

“People are working harder, and longer, than ever before, ” she said.

“They love their pets and look after them really well but find that they sometimes cannot give them all the attention they require – this is where I come in.

“Pets get lonely, just as humans do, and I can provide them with a bit of companionship while their owners are not there.

” I can also make sue they are exercised and fed when people are working late or when they go away on business or holidays.”

Ms De Sousa said she offered an alternative to those pet owners who did not want to put their pet in boarding kennels.

” Pets miss their owners when they go away” she said. “If they are then taken out of the environment they are accustomed to they will miss that as well. I am able to attend to their needs in familiar surroundings so they feel at ease.”

Ms De Sousa, who has TAFE associate diploma in accounting, said she had no regrets leaving behind a full-time office job at an accounting firm in Sydney.

” I love being outdoors and I love animals,” she said. “I also like being my own boss and this way I can combine all these things.”

Most of Ms De Sousa’s clients are of the canine or feline, variety, however she does not discriminate.

“I love all pets,” she said. “Mostly I look after cats and dogs by I cater for a variety of animals an have even been booked to do some cockatoo sitting later this year!”

Ms De Sousa said she worked for a wide cross-section of the community, from professional people who had to go away regularly on business, to workers who just didn’t have the energy to exercise their pets after a hard day at work.

She also offers, a home minding service – collecting people’s mail, attending to garbage bins, watering plants and organizing security while people are away.

” With more and more two-income families, people have less time to cater to certain chores, such as pet care,” she said. “This is why the personal-service sector is steadily increasing.”

The personal-service industry now employs 333,000 Australians according to business research and forecasting firm IBIS.

Chairman Phil Ruthven said the industry, which was worth a staggering $21 billion in the financial year, had had rapid growth over the past few decades.

” There has always been some form of personal service but the industry has grown rapidly since the 1960s,” he said.

“This is due to the rise in double-income families in the baby boomer category – families that were less likely to save than their parents.

“These families began the conspicuous consumption period where personal services and care were utilized like never before.

“In previous generations everything was DIY – you mowed your own lawns, you cut your family’s hair, you fixed your own car, you cooked each meal and you looked after your own children.

“The baby boomer generation began to outsource all of these things – they were mobile, more independent and less likely to feel guilty for getting help.”

Mr Ruthven said the children of the baby boomers, those aged 15-34 commonly known as generation X, were even more willing to outsource chores than their parents had been.

“For these people, who make up 30 per cent of the population, outsourcing is normal,” he said.

“I believe the next generation will have even less qualms about outsourcing work and may find those who still do their own chores rather quaint.”

Mr Ruthven said the most popular domestic services were cleaning, ironing, cooking, gardening, child minding, tutoring, pet care and health-care services.

“When both people are working they don’t want to come home to a third job and it usually doesn’t pay to do so,” he said.

“When all costs are taken into account, it’s usually cheaper to outsource some of your chores. If you value your own time and count in your labor and the materials involved it is often more economical and more efficient to have someone do such jobs for you.”

Mr Ruthven said in today’s overworked and under worked society – with those juggling work and family commitments looking for help and those who have been retrenched or are unemployed looking for work – an increase in personal services was inevitable.

Dr Rene Leal, a sociology lecturer at Wollongong University, said the increase in the personal-service industry came at the expense of traditional manufacturing industries.

“The personal-service industry has increase due to the process of globalization and how this has affected the labor market,” he said.

“Many multinational corporations have transferred their manufacturing facilities overseas to Third World countries to take advantage of the cheap labor.

“This has led to the growth of the service sector as people are not able to find traditional jobs in factories.”

Many Australians, like Ms De Sousa, have been able to take advantage of the growth in service-oriented jobs.
In fact the Federal Government’s New Enterprise Initiative Scheme (NEIS) funded Ms De Sousa’s business, enabling her to fulfill her dream of starting her own business.
The Portuguese-born woman said for her, Australia was indeed the land of opportunity.

“There are so many opportunities for migrants in Australia,” she said.

“I had a good idea, I researched the viability of it and applied for the NEIS and was successful.

“I knew there was a demand for this kind of service and my clientele is increasing all the time.”

Comment at the photo:
Emilia De Sousa enjoys working with enthusiastic clients like Mangerton’s Lily and Jack.

“That’s Life” Magazine 2000, Edited by Claire Isaak/Kate Scoltock

LESS TAXING JOB: Dog sitting … Emilia De Sousa with some of her furry charges.
Picture: SOPHIA MCNEILL

by Jenny Dennis

Job’s a lot less taxing

Emilia De Sousa used to spend her working days helping people look after their taxes.

Trained in accounting and working in Sydney for KPMG, Ms De Sousa had the sort of high-powered job to which most of us aspire.

But she gave it up to become a cleaner, three years ago expanded into pet care, and has never looked back.

“I don’t have an office now,” she said. “I do my job in other people’s homes and backyards and I love it.”

Caring for an assortment of dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, chooks and fish gives her great job satisfaction … and as an added bonus, keeps her fit.

She walks, plays with, feeds and waters – where appropriate. But she always likes to meet her charges first, in case there’s a clash of personality. So far that hasn’t happened because Ms De Sousa, as you would expect, is a real animal lover.
“I like dogs best, the bigger the better,” she said. “Cats are a bit too shy for me.”

Apart from caring for the feathered and furrier members of holidaying households, Ms De Sousa will collect mail, turn lights on and off, and generally keep homes from looking abandoned.
“I move the outdoor tables and chairs around, things like that,” she said.

If she had to name a downside of her job it would be that she can’t leave Wollongong during the summer Christmas-New Year break … “my busiest time of the year”.