Sitter problems reassurance needed

[Puppylucky]

Hi - apologies if this shows up twice it disappeared just as I was about to post it!
To cut a long story short we are away for 8 days and our boy Marvin is at home with a new cat sitter. Whilst she is very capable she also has a full on job that she is doing remotely during her stay with us. Unfortunately Marvin is going through a night time crying and prowling phase (common with Maus) and she isn't really coping as she understandably needs her sleep
From Spain I am limited in what I can actually do to help and am dreading the daily messages about her disrupted sleep. In desperation I have agreed that she can shut him in the kitchen even though I know he will hate it and probably get even more distressed. I know no one can really help but please can someone reassure me that I won't scar my cat for life trying to please my sitter! Cat tax of Marvin giving her the stink eye attached

@Puppylucky he will settle and be fine, honestly. I totally get how upsetting it is but try not to worry too much or have it ruin your holiday. We had a few days away when MIL was looking after our last cat, and on the first night (!) she walked out and left the keys on the kitchen table, the front door shut on the Yale, and that was that. We have a vestibule do she couldn’t even put food through the letterbox because the middle door was shut. I insisted we got the red eye home the next day. With hindsight we should have couriered a set of our keys up - instead we spent an absolute bomb on last minute flights, missed out on all our plans and the hotel room we’d already paid for because I was in a mad panic and couldn’t think straight.

Yes, it’s no different to my cats going through phases of yodelling half the night, not to mention poking me in the face with their paws and sleeping on my bed in such a way that I have to lay at a weird angle to accommodate them 😂

But that's YOUR cat, your choice to live with that, unless this THS was undisputedly informed that this would be the situation? It's a free service after all! If I was doing a house sit and hadn't been very clearly informed that this cat was likely to be vocal for hours in the night then I'd be pretty pissed off. I've a day job and need to be able to sleep. Lot's of THS do the sits because for one reason or another they can't have a pet right now but love animals.

My dog also makes me have to contort myself night after night, or farts in my face 🙃 grim! But I can also make the decision to shut her out of the room overnight if I wish.

To be completely accurate it's a Marvin problem!

I would shut her in the kitchen. Marvin is marvellous 😻

Also, i have a feline friend who shouts in my face at 4am most nights demanding fuss. I love her too much to shut her out. If i were babysitting Marvin, I'd accept the price to pay for his gorgeousness.

It's all got worse unfortunately. She has accused me of not being honest about Marvin's behaviour and is saying it's not normal. To be honest if he is yelling for hours on end as she is claiming then no it's not normal for him and he is clearly distressed about something. I'm just tired of squabbling with her and want to go home. We have looked into catching an earlier flight home and finishing her sit early but she probably won't want to do that as she needs somewhere to stay until her next sit starts. And in the meantime Marvin is locked in the kitchen.

But I did tell her! The problem is that unless you have experience of a vocal breed I don't think you can appreciate exactly how noisy they can be. She is also extremely sensitive to noise and finds it hard to go back to sleep once she's woken up - things that she should have told me as I would have then realised that this wasn't going to work.

I have a very vocal tuxedo. When a neighbour moved out she said she would miss her daily chats with my boy.

@Puppylucky if you got an earlier flight when would you be returning? He may be getting more vocal if he can pick up on her dislike of him.

I made a call yesterday and we could go back on Tuesday. I let her know and she's now backpedalling saying she wasn't complaining (!) . The truth is that she needs the sit to continue for her benefit and it probably would be unfair if us to insist . She locked Marvin in the kitchen for the first time last night so let's see how it goes.

Oh!! Quite the turnaround. I understand why you would be reluctant to return if it means she has no where else to go.

Is he just in the kitchen overnight, or is she going to keep him in there all day?

How much do you trust her? Do you think she would be mean to the cat at all?

At the moment it's night time only - but she may try and shut him in once she's working again on Monday. The thing I'm most worried about is that it's going to make his behaviour deteriorate further as he will be trying desperately to get out.
I don't think she will be mean to him deliberately but I do think she doesn't really want to be bothered with him when she's busy. For example Marvin is buggy trained and likes to sit in his buggy in the garden. She sat with him and had her lunch yesterday but then proposed leaving him in the buggy whilst she went back to work on the top floor of the house. To be fair she did check with me first but didn't think that the cat might get distressed being left alone in a vulnerable (in his eyes) position trapped in a buggy!
I am sure she is affectionate and kind when she has the time and is doing all the basics, but I also think a lot of people do cat sitting because it's low maintenance and stress and don't want to take on a high involvement pet like Marvin.

She has just reported back that apparently he was quiet all night and loving and sweet when she let him out. So obviously I have been misjudging him all along which is a bit weird. 🤔 Anyway hopefully she will be able to enjoy the rest of her sit in peace with Marvin safely shut away.

That's a good update.

Most cats are fine shut "away" overnight. Mine have never been allowed upstairs while we sleep. They have everything they need downstairs and have never kept us awake.

I think you’ve been unlucky and got someone who isn’t dealing with things very well. Leave a review accordingly.

Great news! I had a feeling he would settle when he was shut in. Occasionally Louie will come in for bed, be racing about like a whirling dervish, and shouting at the back door to go out again (no). Nine times out of ten he’s curled up in his bed by the time I come back to switch the lights out after brushing my teeth and shutting down the rest of the house.

I know it’s not the case for you, as this is not Marvin’s usual, but I think cats (or at least the cats we’ve had) quickly learn routines. I always brush Louie after we’ve had dinner, and his audio cue for that is the dishwasher being loaded/going on. If I have something I need to do first he comes and finds me to tell me it’s brush time!

That’s a positive update @Puppylucky. I hope you manage to enjoy your time away now. Hopefully she can now try and bond a bit with Marvin.

Are you usually at home with him all day OP or are you at work? What on earth makes you think she will put him in the kitchen when she is working? Bit of a leap!

How is she getting a sweeter deal than you are? She is looking after your house as well as your cat for free.

Sleep deprivation wasn’t part of the deal, and isn’t something that most people would reasonably expect as a result of agreeing to feed and water a cat.

I feel sorry for the house sitter being trapped in this position.

Because she has already complained about him being noisy when she was on calls and tried to suggest leaving him in his buggy whilst she went back to work on Friday afternoon @roycroppersshopper so not that much of a leap.
Yes I'm very glad he has apparently settled, but I'm now also wary that she is putting a positive spin on a situation he isn't happy with, as it lets her shut him away when ever he's being a nuisance. He is settled on my work chair half asleep at the moment apparently, so he was clearly still up half the night, but just not annoying her.
I know that plenty of owners do this as a matter of course, but we don't and I do still feel that she shouldn't be treating him in a way he's not used to, for her convenience. Whether he settles or not is kind of beside the point in a way - in my eyes anyway. She doesn't know his back story as a rescue. He has never slept in a room on his own (rescued as a very young kitten and always had other cats or humans around) and it will be strange to him even if he is sucking it up for now.
I know I'm probably being petty but that's for my thread here - in my messages to her I am bring very polite.

Have to agree, if your cat needs this level of care such as being taken out in a buggy, plus is vocal in the night then a professional should have been called in. Assume a cattery would also be a no-no?

Is he a house cat, not allowed outside? Personal choice obvs and am sure you have your reasons, but that seems to squash the cat's natural instincts more than being in the kitchen overnight so the household can sleep!

I agree with this, the whole set-up sounds really unusual and not really fair on the cat.

He doesn't need to be taken out in a buggy it's an extra enrichment activity for him that he's also fine without. He is an indoor cat at the moment, but that will be changing as we are having a Catio built. I agree about his natural instincts needing to be honoured, but I also have a responsibility to keep him safe which would be difficult where we live if we let him roam free.
I also agree that using THS in this instance was a mistake. We have used them successfully for longer stays, but the sitters have been younger local people just looking for a change of scene, so had plenty of time and energy to spend on a cat. This is the first time I have encountered a sitter who doesn't really have a home base, but moves from sit to sit whilst living a normal working life and her expectations are obviously completely different
I would also argue that her extreme noise sensitivity is the real problem here. No matter what I have suggested ( earplugs / shutting him out of the bedroom etc) doesn't seem to be sufficient for her. We obviously sleep with Marvin every night and are not noticeably suffering from sleep deprivation!
Anyway lesson learned. Next time we will pay for a sitter (although that doesn't always guarantee better care as we have also found) and try and find one who will enjoy Marvin rather than treating him like a nuisance.

The expectation of being able to sleep through the night while house sitting is completely normal. It doesn’t sound like she has ‘extreme noise sensitivity’ at all, so that is not the problem. The problem is your cats extreme behaviour and your expectation that someone should put up with that for free.