Petsitters payment in kind.

[Georgiepud]

A friend and her daughter are coming to pet sit our 2 cats and 2 guinea pigs during the summer holidays for a fortnight.
They will have the use of a nice house and garden in a pleasant location (Cotswolds). All electricity, mod cons etc.
My question is, how many "extras" should I leave out for them? I mean things like -
Tea bags and coffee capsules
Loo rolls
Dishwasher tablets etc etc
I don't want to appear mean, but ........

Bahahahaha

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Not RTFT but pay their travel there and back to your house.

I’m curious what OP considers to be “mod cons” these days

A mangle and a carpet beater?

I pay a friends teenage son £15 a day to do 2 visits to feed & play with them plus a decent stock of drinks & treats for him. It would cost me a lot more for local cat sitters but he will stay for ages to play with them. His mum & another friend will do it as a favour but I repay by walking/feeding their dogs.
You're saving a fortune if you're not paying them, can't believe you're talking about toilet rolls & DW tabs! A basket full.of treats for both & daughter plus some cash/gift card for a couple of meals out. They're doing you a massive favour.

Based on how many pets it would cost over around a hundred a night at our two local catteries and small pet carers so times that by how long your away and realise how mean you are....when my brother and his wife stay with my 3 cats and dog once a year for two weeks not only do they come to the usual normal everyday shopping I leave a bunch of beers,wine, chocolates etc etc and we always leave some money aswell although to be fair that's always still there every time we've come back, but either way we leave it for them to use. I love the fact the animals have friendly faces, same routines and petting, walks etc as normal and actually enjoy that my brother gets a break aswell

You are kidding right?
You expect them to come to your house and you havent stocked up on BASICS like Toilet roll & dishwasher tablets?

You have all the mod cons? What does this even mean these days?

Have enough of everything like toilet roll, dishwasher tablets, and all the other basics.
Make sure you have things like bread, butter, milk, tea, Coffee, Sugar, Something for a sandwich / roll etc.
Then i would personally add some nice soft drinks, chocolate, Snacks, Sweets etc for them.

Leave them with a clean house, clean fresh bedding, Clean towels etc

And anyway what’s a bloody nice house in the Cotswolds got to do with it ? Your hospitality should be exactly the same as if it were in say Birmingham. You sound like you’re doing them the favour !

Ehm they are doing U the favour not vice versa. Nice friend you are. Not.

None of those things are “extras” - they are the bare minimum that you should be leaving. “Extras” would be home baked items, bottles of wine, etc. - things to make their stay more pleasant, not the essentials of life.

My parents were paid pet-sitters and they were treated much better than this by most of their paying clients.

Unless you mean “how many extras on top of a fortnights worth of the basics” then you are an absolute CF’er.

They are doing you a massive favour. Cat sitting is £40 a day for 2 cats here. Even if you managed to get the guinea pigs included for an extra tenner you’re still talking about £700.

So you leave a fortnights worth of everything plus some extras so they don’t have to traipse out to the shops (which is likely to be a pain in a ‘pleasant Cotswold location’).

Surely you just leave the house stocked as if you were going to be there? Were you considering emptying it of the stuff you have in already? Weird.

Then you also leave them treat items as well, as a thank you. It's not hard.

I mean all those are daily essentials are you going to count out the toilet roll and tea bags she is allowed to drink tea whilst she sits in your "nice garden".

This! At the very least leave them a nice bottle of tipple if they drink, maybe nice biscuits and a cake.

And do something or give something afterwards.

Otherwise you’re tighter than a knat’s arse. Not my saying, but one I heard years ago.

This is hilarious! In all my time on here I don't think I have ever read anything as tight as this. I am mortified for you.

snigger

Same here! Please don’t delete it MNHQ!

There have been a rush of these 'payment for pet sitting in my chichi home' posts. This is definitely the fourth, possibly the fifth.

OP drops and runs. Why is this?

Because they didn’t expect to have their arse (rightly) dished up to them on a plate, that’s why!

You might be right.

Are actually staying in your house for the duration of your holiday? If so then I would definitely leave all the facilities they would need plus some treats. Ot seems odd they would need to stay full time just to look after your pets. My husband has been looking after our neighbours 3 cats and 2 bearded dragons bit he just pops in a couple of times a day.

If you can afford a two week holiday you can afford to leave as much toilet roll and tea bags as possible! Don’t be mean, be generous! Chocolates and wine and a nice meal voucher for a local place wouldn’t be out of the question!

If I were you OP I'd want to make my home as lovely a place as I could for them whilst I was away as they're doing you a huge favour, are guests in your house and are also your friends.

Flowers in vases, vouchers for local treats, lovely food, clean sheets on the bed and more in a pile of clean linen and blankets, wine, a list of suggestions of lovely things to do locally, food, a home made cake in a tin, magazines plus age appropriate things for her daughter - games, treats, a paddling pool in the garden for example.

I'd want it to feel like a holiday for them.

What about wifi? Broadband? On or off?

I think it depends on how much rent she's charging them. If it's mates rates, then I think wifi off, market rate, leave it on.