Getting a sitter, a dog walker or a home watch visit to your front door in Wesley Chapel, Florida depends on which community you live in. Some communities have a staffed gatehouse, some have a gate with a code or a callbox, and some have no gate at all. Most of them also have a separate fob for the pool and the amenity center.
There are three patterns. Here is how each one works from the visitor's side, and what we need from you to make the first visit go smoothly.
Pattern one: a staffed gatehouse with a guest list
The Ridge at Wiregrass Ranch has a staffed gatehouse. Esplanade at Wiregrass Ranch has a guarded entry. In both, nobody gets past the gate unless a resident has put them on the list.
What we need from you: add us to your guest list before the first visit. Every gatehouse has its own way of handling visitors who come back on a schedule, so ask yours how to set up a recurring guest rather than adding us before every visit. If you are out of town when we come, the gatehouse cannot reach you to ask, so the list has to be done before you leave.
Pattern two: a gate with a code or a callbox
Epperson is gated, with a code or callbox entry. Watergrass has gated villages inside a community that is partly open. Bridgewater is gated. In these communities the gate has a keypad rather than a person.
What we need from you: send us the code once at the meet and greet, and let us know if it changes. Communities change codes, and a sitter standing at a gate with a dead code at 6:30 in the morning has to call you. If your gate can also ring your phone, the code is still the better plan, because that call comes at whatever time the visit is scheduled.
Pattern three: no gate at all
Most villages in Meadow Pointe, along with Country Walk, Lexington Oaks, Palm Cove, New River, Northwood and Quail Hollow, have no gate. The street is open and the front door is the only lock. Here the only question is the key.
The front door: lockboxes and smart locks
There is no front desk to leave a key with, so it comes down to one of a few options.
- A smart lock. A keypad lock with a separate code for each person who comes to the house. You can give a code, revoke it, and see when it was used. This is the setup we recommend, because you never hand over a physical key and you can turn our code off the day we are done.
- A lockbox. A key safe with a combination, mounted somewhere out of sight. Change the combination when the arrangement ends.
- The garage keypad. It works, but a garage code that opens onto an unlocked door into the house is a house key. Treat it like one.
- Not the fake rock. Not under the mat, not in the planter, not over the door frame.
Whatever you choose, tell one neighbor that we are expected. A woman letting herself into your house at 7 in the morning looks the same from across the street whether she is the sitter or a stranger.
The pool and the amenity center: the fob problem
This is the part that usually comes up on the first hot Saturday.
Most amenity centers and community pools in Wesley Chapel are restricted to residents with a fob or an access card. A sitter taking your kids to the pool needs your fob, or the gate does not open. Decide before the first visit whether the pool is on the list of things the kids can do with us, and if it is, where the fob lives and whether your community's rules allow a caregiver to use it with the kids when you are not there. If your community's dog park is behind the same fob, the same goes for the dog walker.
Epperson is different. The lagoon is ticketed and open to the public, so a sitter can take the kids, but you buy the passes, and you tell us what the kids are and are not allowed to do once they are in.
What we ask at the meet and greet
We do a free meet and greet before any first visit, and most of it is this list.
- How we get through the gate, and whether the guest list or the code is already set up
- How we get through the front door, and which code or key is ours
- Where the amenity fob lives, and which amenities the kids or the dog are allowed to use with us
- Which neighbor knows we are coming
- Where you want the car parked, since some communities have rules about the street
- Where the leash, the treats, the snacks and the first-aid kit are
- Who to call after you, if you cannot be reached
We write it down once, and the second visit does not need any of it again.
If your community is not on this list
We only wrote about the communities where we know how the gate works. If yours is not here, tell us how your gate works at the meet and greet and we will follow whatever your community does. Do not send codes or gate details through a web form or a text before we have met.
We are just down Bruce B. Downs in New Tampa, and we cover Wesley Chapel and New Tampa. Tell us once how your gate works, and we will not have to call you about it again.