Cat pooped and weed bed while we were away - cat sitter didn’t deal with mess

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Just like the title suggests, we are currently away and our cat is being looked after by a cat sitter from an agency. Lovely lady with lots of experience of cats. Things seemed to be going well until our cat peed and pooped in a bed. This has never happened before but I understand it can be a stress reaction, or perhaps the litter tray wasn’t clean, or the cat didn’t have access to the litter tray for a period of time if the door was accidentally shut, etc.

My issue is that the cat sitter texted about this after they left the property. They left the mess as it was and they won’t attend until at some point tomorrow. I called back to discuss but it is what it is at this point.

I am now worried sick about the state of the bed - i don’t think the smell will ever come out as it will have been left for 24h or more. I worry that it has soaked through to the mattress and we will have to buy a new bed. I worry about the house, cat urine is awful and there might be damage to the property. I worry about our lovely cat who must be extremely unhappy to have done something like this - and for all I know she might have done it again as her own mess is still on full display and may confuse her.

I’m probably going to leave husband and kids and fly back earlier as I am worried sick!

This is going to be very expensive to fix. Husband was laid off and we have no money, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

Any advice on what to do? Help!

This has happened to me before (no cat sitter, cat accidentally shut in a bedroom on a weekend away).

No need to fly back.

It will not be soaking any further into the bed now. In fact, it will be easy to scoop any dried solids off.

Sheets straight into hot wash after spraying with enzyme spray.

Spray duvet too and get it laundered (our was a single and went into washing machine).

Ditto mattress protector, or consider replacing.

It hadn't reached our mattress, but I did wipe with bicarbonate and leave to air.

If the pet sitter will scoop any solids and wash the sheets and air the room, that will help with the smell. But leaving it isn't causing more damage if they won't.

Get them to shut the cat out of that room so it won't recur.

Omg I can't believe the cat sitter just left it. Thats absolutely disgusting. Who just leaves shit and piss on someone's bed when they are caring for their animal. She could of stripped it straight away and bagged it or messaged and asked if u wanted things washed. This is just gross. I'd tell her your not happy. Dread to think how she lives tbh and if the cat hasn't done it before I'll bet she's either left him too long before letting him out or he has been trapped there.
But don't fly home it's not fly home worthy. Message her and say just shove the bedding in a bin bag please and remove the poo. I mean she's emptying litter trays I assume! So what's the difference. Get yourself a big drink and chillax and enjoy the moment with your family.

@RiteAid thank you! very helpful!

So it did leak quite a bit as the cat seems to have gone more than once in the same spot (sitter didn’t close bedroom door after their discovery so perhaps the cat returned). It has gone through the duvet, the mattress protector (it’s not rubberised or plastic), and also the mattress topper. Impressive and pretty awful.

This is why I was considering flying back early. I don’t know if this means that the cat will have more accidents around the house now as I don’t know why it happened in the first place. Perhaps the cat is unhappy and stressed, perhaps it got spooked by the thunderstorms, or perhaps the sitter accidentally closed the door to where the litter tray is - or perhaps she hasn’t been cleaning it properly? I just don’t know.

Dry cleaner is ok to take the items. A friend is meeting the cat sitter to help carry the things - trying to get this organised now.

I am hoping that the cleaning products which have been helpfully recommended on this thread will help when we get back. I ordered the RSPCA Wee Away and the SimpleSolution on Amazon. I will try the bicarbonate, and also the bowls of vinegar.

( @Lockdownseperation flights would have been £12.99 today and around £30 tomorrow)

( @Muppetry76 we are staying with my parents in law so it’s not a lavish holiday by any means. We are cooking at home, haven’t bought any clothes for this holiday as there was no need to replace anything save for a pair of sandals for one of the kids, we took the tube to Heathrow... Flights were booked before Covid and before my husband was laid off. Of course it’s never necessary to travel and yes the cat sitter does cost money, but it’s been a difficult year and we haven’t seen my parents in law since last year so we decided to go. That we were able to afford these things doesn’t mean that the cost of dry cleaning, or worse replacing items should it come to that, is particularly welcome at this time)

It may well be that the cat sitter hadn't been cleaning the litter tray properly. My perfectly trained little cat would use the floor next to the tray or find a washing up bowl to use if her tray had been left unscooped because it seems that I am the only person able to do such things.

I went away for one night in all the years she was with us and a friend stayed to look after them. She refused to poo until I got home and went to her tray as soon as the friend left.

I wouldn't use that particular sitter again because for some reason your cat didn't like her.

The floor situation was resolved by putting extra trays down, maybe yours needs another tray. I would buy the big bottles of Simple Solution, usually sold in the dog section, rather than the small sprays, it removes all manner of organic smells and stains - might need a large dose. I also added it to the wet & dry machine to do the carpets as I had a leaky cat and could't remove the carpets as we were in rented at the time so just kept them very clean.

If you come back you may have to quarantine for 14 days, although on the plus side if you do you won't need a cat-sitter!

My cat used to do this if we went away for a few days. Now shut all bedroom doors as she only does it on beds. It is rubbish, but duvets can be washed.

Scrub mattress as best you can, Dr Beckham upholstery cleaner is Good, has a good brush attachment. Then use bicarbonate of soda with a few drops of essential oil. Sprinkle on when dry, leave for a while and hoover off.

This used to be a fairly frequent occurrence in our house, outdoor cats would get in through windows and leave their scent on the beds.The house cat then seemed to think he had to pee or poo on the beds presumably to mark his territory. Whilst unpleasant it rarely was a huge problem and there was only one occasion where he managed to poo on an unmade mattress. Stay calm and enjoy your holiday.Waterproof sheets would be a good idea the next time.

had they stripped the bed there would have then been a bare mattress. And then the cat might have come back and peed on the unprotected mattress, whose fault would that have been? Would you have been shouting that she shouldn't have stripped the bed?

No I'd be shouting that she was an idiot not to ensure that the bedroom door was closed to stop the cat getting into the room yet again. At that point if the cat did it again on the bare mattress it is the cat sitters fault that the cat has still had access to the bed

Strange, I would have at least taken the sheets off and dumped them in the bath if nothing else. The catsitter sounds like a bit of a jobsworth but this is not worth flying home for.
My various cats over the years have pee'd on the bed (while I was in it - feet suddenly felt very warm).
Ancient cat can't be trusted in the bedrooms while I'm at work so all the upstairs doors remain shut and she has the living room and the kitchen for damage limitation.
You can buy that bleach spray everywhere for a pound, several applications of that will kill the smell and then turn the mattress the other way round, the smell will go in no time.
Enjoy your holiday, it's no big deal.

once when we were away for a few days one of the cats got stuck in a bedroom and the neighbour feeding them didnt notice.
Yes the smell was pretty awful when we got home but it all cleaned up ok eventually and we didnt have to replace the mattress. DD feeds cats and does litter trays etc for a few people in the area and if she noticed this she sure as hell wouldnt just leave it and shes only15!
Picking up the poo is the minimum the cat sitter should have done
I think OP is more worried about why the cats was so stressed and did this totally out of character but I dont think its worth cutting short your holiday over OP

Bleach spray (for a pound) is not a good idea. Bleach smells like cat pee to a cat and they try to mask it by peeing....

Unless you mean an enzyme spray.

Why was the sitter going into your bedroom in the first place?

OP now that the immediate issue of dealing with the soiled sheets has been (mostly) dealt with, how much longer are you away? Are you ok with the cat sitter continuing to visit or is there a way you can ask a friend or neighbour to take over cat sitting since your agency cat sitter clearly isn't up to the job.

When you come back I would also be speaking to the agency about how unhappy I was at their sitters behaviour. I would expect any professional agency to have a procedure for emergency situations - cats escaping/medical issues/cats causing damage while they are responsible for them etc - and have a defined response. In this case I'd expect them at a minimum to: clean up any actual poo; strip the bed and put the soiled items somewhere they won't cause further damage - due to the quantity I'd have put them in the bath, if it was just a sheet/mattress protector they could go in a bag by the washer; prevent the cat gaining access to that room again as once a cat has peed somewhere they will do it again; contact you to inform you of what happened and what they have already done to sort it.

Cat sitter sounds a bit crap tbh, surely one of the main points is clearing up cat poo’s?
We only let our cat have access to kitchen & utility so any accidents are on a washable floor. Better still we started to use a cattery.
Got to say our old cat had an accident on a bed once whilst we were at work and the smell and stains were horrific. We did need to get a new mattress.

@Loopylou6 because of the smell, she wanted to see where it was coming from.

Heck. We often 'cat sit' for our neighbours, but we wouldn't dream of going upstairs in their house. I have cleaned up bits of leftover mouse or bird downstairs, and sometimes the cat has been a bit sick (usually just on the first day in an unusually quiet house) but I've never been asked to check upstairs.

So if this happened to my neighbour's bed they wouldn't know until they got back. Obviously their cat knows us really well (and we have cats too) so doesn't get too stressed (and has never soiled a bed while they've been away as far as I know - and in a normal year they're away 5 or 6 times a year for a fortnight at a time).

Do people like the OP who use cat sitting agencies routinely ask them to check beds upstairs then? (I've never used one so I've no idea if the OP is BU or not!)

@melj1213
And if the cat sitter had shut the door and the cat had scratched holy hell out of the door as that's where it usually sleeps...? I've seen the mess a cat can do to a door it wants to get through. The OP would have a much bigger bill than the launderette.

I'm really shocked at all the people saying it's not the cat sitters job to strip the bed! If the pet you're looking after has had an accident, it's your responsibility to deal with it and clean it up!

I cat sit and if a cat had peed on the bed I would strip it, wash and dry the linen and re-make it afterwards. It's not hard and only takes ten minutes.

If you do pet care for a living that also involves dealing with any accidents. One of the dogs I walk is a rescue and still has accidents - if I go and collect her and she's peed on the floor, I don't just leave it! Part of my job is to make sure the dog is happy and that includes cleaning up accidents!

If you're not prepared to clean up pee and poo from the floor, maybe you shouldn't be doing a job that involves looking after animals?!

@melj1213 We were discussing this at length yesterday. Do we want her to keep coming for the next 6 days or should we find someone else? Husband thinks it’s best if she keeps coming. He thinks that at least the cat is used to this person and that introducing someone else would add more stress.

I would probably prefer to have someone else come for the remaining days. I don’t trust her judgment at all following this, as it’s baffling to me how she handled it. I feel that the normal thing to do would have been to call me while she was there, not text me hours after she had left. I also feel that stripping the bed (or at the very least closing the bedroom door) would have been the rational thing to do, but judging by this thread I’m probably in the minority on this.

By the way I offered to compensate her for dealing with this, not because I necessarily think it’s above and beyond the scope of her role as cat sitter but because I really needed her help with sorting this out.

I’m also really worried about my cat’s wellbeing, I know she is being fed and looked after but she is clearly not happy!!

I’ve got three super king 4.5 tog duvets fastened together with Velcro dots off amazon.

If the duvet gets dirty I can have it washed at home & dry in a day. I’ve got a 9kg Bosch washing machine but couldn’t fit a 13.5 tog super king duvet in it & its £30 a time to get them dry cleaned.

Heck. We often 'cat sit' for our neighbours, but we wouldn't dream of going upstairs in their house

So if you turned up at their house and there was an awful smell coming from somewhere (and in this warm weather it would stink fairly quickly) you wouldnt try and find out where it was coming from and would just leave it for potentially days?

I would never normally go snooping around someone's house if they asked me to pet sit but if I turned up and there was a smell that suggested their pet had peed/pooped somewhere they shouldnt have then I would definitely give the place a quick once over to try and find the source.

Equally when I had cats I would not expect cat sitters to go through my bedroom etc because my cats were confined to the open plan kitchen/living room and so would not have had access to anywhere else and they would have no need to go in my room. However, if the cats did get out/doors hadn't been securely closed, I would have no issues with a cat sitter checking my room for cat pee/poop accidents before they closed the door to prevent the cats getting in again.

I can't imagine any sitter doing this dbh. Even my best friend who sits for our two cats occasionally would have done her best to clean up!

Tell the sitter to remove the bed coverings and clean up as best she can. And never use her again.

bdh=to be honest

I use cat sitters - I'd expect them to clean mess on the floor, but not wash bedding - maybe remove solids and put plastic under the duvet to prevent soaking through. Fortunately never had any accidents, apart from a hairball vomit one Christmas day (and that was a friend rather than a paid cat sitter, who did clear it up AND volunteer the following Christmas).

It does work both ways though - I had really bad diarrhea this morning - cleaned everything, showered, another round of disinfectant, bath. An hour and a half later, my cat was still upset, wailing and pawing at any area of floor (all wood or rubber, so easy to clean thoroughly).
I'm not sure whether she disliked the smell, or somehow thinks she did it and doesn't remember - I don't think I've ever seen her so distressed.