I have just come home from a long weekend away. I hired a local cat sitter for my 3 cats so they could stay at home. I've done this regularly for several years and never had any issues. I've previously found sitters through a website, but this lady lives very close and set up a business doing it part time last year. So this is the first time I've used her.
I've come home and found one of my three cats trapped upstairs. The sitter had for some reason closed the door to the stairs (the door is directly on the stairs well). My poor cat has been stuck without food and water for 24 hours. She has torn the carpet up on the stairs, defecated and urinated on there too.
I'm really upset as you can probably imagine.
What would your next step be with the cat sitter? I will obviously inform her what has happened and that we won't be using her service again. But is it reasonable to ask her to cover the damages? I am about to call the vet to see if the cat needs to be seen also. Any advice?