Boarding cattery vs. house/pet sitter

[zafferana]

I'd love to know about your experience with using a pet sitter vs. putting your cat in a cattery. We are due to go away for 2-3 weeks in August and I'm having a bit of wobble about putting my cat in a cattery for such a long time. She is very independent and loves to be out in the garden and having put her a cattery for just three days over half term I could see how depressed she was when I went to pick her up. She was in a tiny cage with a window and I just can't imagine her being stuck in there for 2-3 weeks. We will also need someone to care for our garden while we're away or everything will be dead/a wilderness when we come back. Anyone with any experience of house/pet sitters?

We use a cattery(run by a good friend) as out dcat would bolt from a stranger and we would worry about him bolting from the house and not coming back while the sitter was there, we don't have a front or back porch, the doors open straight into the main house.

Late to reply to previous comments, sorry, but Thankyou for your comments; just to say, I think the cat that is toileting in the house is stressed at us being absent. It continues fora couple of days when we return (this has repeated for a couple of weekends we’ve been away). The neighbour wouldn’t notice as he only comes in through the kitchen to feed them. The litter trays are clean when we return. We will try a cattery for the next trip and then see how the cats are following that. If they are not happy there I will look into professional pet sitters .