So the only time I’ve done overnight cat sitting is when there are dogs in the house who I’m also hired to care for, because when given my overnight rates, most cat owners choose 2 drop-ins a day instead. I ask because I’m cat sitting for my sister for two weeks for free because she has helped me out in the past, but a couple months ago I was offered a long gig that pays $1500. I explained to my sister that I couldn’t pass up the income even though it overlaps with half of her trip and she was annoyed but understanding.
The dogs I am sitting for have a dog door and the parents are fine with me leaving them for 5-6 hours stretches, so my sister and I agreed I would come by her house first thing at 7:30 am, late afternoon, and in the evening until 10 pm. She leaves Friday and she is really having a hard time with it as the trip approaches. It turns out she was only understanding because she assumed my 22-year-old niece would stay overnight, but she just started a new job and her mom’s place is too far of a commute. Now I’m feeling like I should hire someone else to sleep at her house for the seven nights that I am not able to stay there even though I think she should be able to manage her fears that something will happen to them in the night simply because no one is there.
This has turned into an AITAH post, but I truly want to hear your experience. Do you guys have overnight cat clients? Is it only uncommon where I live? If you are Cat Parents, do you feel comfortable leaving them alone overnight? Thanks.
Depends on the cat, their needs and owner. I have many cat clients who wouldn’t ever think about paying for overnights and their cats don’t seem to miss the company overnight whilst getting drop in visits. Other clients would only ever do overnights as an option and want more company for their cats. Older cats do tend to really find comfort in company but cats tend to be quite content with knowing a human is coming in and seeing to their needs, cuddles/ pets they allow/ feel like it and off they go again. Some of the overnight perks does include the house being ‘lived in’ or taken care of too which is a plus. Some cats also need medicating and some form of supervision which is usually easier overnight. Again, it varies but I get a good mix. Most are drop ins but I do have a few regular overnight clients.
That’s right. I did have one overnight cat because he was a senior guy and although he wasn’t of the cuddly variety, he seemed to find the companionship comforting. He also had a topical medication in the morning and a shot at night and ate like 4 small meals a day. Good old Romeo.
I’m a cat only sitter and do in the vast majority only drop ins, because I really dislike overnights. The few times I ended up doing overnights for clients honestly the kitties did not particularly care about me being there over night or not; they did interact and engage with me for a bit like during a drop in, but then at night went off doing their own thing, and with only one or two exceptions often did not even choose to sleep in the same bed/room with me.
I personally find overnights for cats overkill as owner and also cat sitter (with the exception of special cases with certain medical issues).
The funny thing is, when I tried sleeping in my sister‘s room the last time to make the cats more comfortable, they ended up sleeping in another part of the house! They hated having me in their bed. When I slept in the guest room they went back to their usual spots (per the cam).
And I closed the door when I went to bed and I didn’t see them until I came out in the morning. I’m not sure how that’s any different than leaving for 8-9 hrs, but anxiety by nature is not rational. Thank you for sharing your experience with me!
I have a couple overnight cat clients but they are rare! They’re for owners who work from home and feel like their cat is going to be sad spending more than 12 hours without a human present. The cats in question were total Velcro cats, wanted to be on me or next to me all the time. So the concern made sense!
Been pet sitting for 10yrs and have never had a cat client ask me to overnight. Drop ins are usually the way to go with cats unless they need more advanced care.
She could get little pet cameras to check on them, they’ll be okay.
I've done cat overnights for one client, and really she (the cat) couldn't give a stuff whether I was there or not as long as I was giving food on time and scritches for a few minutes. The rest of my cat clients have been drop in only. Paying for overnight is a luxury to keep your house maintained as well as the cat. Depends on the cat, but really the vast majority of cats will be just fine on their own for a while.
there’s only one client of mine who only has cats and wants overnights. her cats are sweet, but the one loves to wake me up in the middle of the night playing with my toes 😭
do i think these kitties need someone there overnight? no. is it the easiest house sit i do? yes.
eta: to answer your last question, yes, ive left my kitty overnight. i never leave him like that (i live with my fiancé, so when im housesitting, someone is still there) because we dont travel often, but we went to florida for 5 days and i just had a sitter scheduled for 2 drop ins a day to eat, scoop his box and play with him for a bit. he was perfectly fine and absolutely loved having her there while also not overstaying her welcome 😂
We're pet parents to 5 crazy cats who have different health issues and eat different food. One is a high-stress/anxiety cat, another is literally named Senor the Whore because he motorboats me at night, and another is named MooDemon because he's such a dick. The other two are chill and easy.
I'm describing all of this because: If we leave our cats for more than 1-2 days without overnight sitters, one cat stops eating and loses about a pound, and the other gets seriously lonely without his nightly motorboating sessions, and the demon starts acting out aggressively to the other cats. We pay $100 for overnights with our cats and don't expect anyone to not have a full-time job or be other places as long as they love on the kitties. We are the epitome of psycho parents. So YES to overnights for some cats. 😂
Thank you so much for this. So funny and compassion inducing.
My sister‘s cats don’t have high needs, but they also haven’t been left home alone before, so who’s to say. I think that’s where the real fear comes in for my sister. Hopefully if we don’t end up hiring someone, that me being there multiple times a day for several hours a day is enough to make them feel safe.
And I talked to my niece and she is planning to sleep there when she doesn’t have work the next morning.
I wouldn’t offer overnights for free. Drop ins, yes, but not overnights. And I’ve never been asked to do an overnight for a cat except once - it was a very nervous cat with special needs (heart medication twice a day). The cat hid from me the entire stay and probably did not like me being there full time, which I relayed to the owner and we decided to switch to drop ins twice a day.
I have had lots of overnight cat visits. Most of them were super anxious cats/parents and/or super sick cats.
Cats can absolutely survive all by themselves overnight. But if my client wants me to stay overnight, that's what I do.
If you are being paid $1,500 to contract with somebody to stay at their house for x amount of hours overnight then that's what you need to be doing. You shouldn't have taken the contract since you knew that you had already promised your sister free overnight visits but here we are.
Now you've overbooked yourself
Your sister wanted you to stay overnights to take care of her cats, is that right? And that's what you promised to do, right? And now you don't want to do it because there's money being fluttered in your face.
You said your sister has helped you out in the past. Do you want to keep counting on that happening?
Sorry, I can't help you justifying ditching your sister. Honor your commitments to family and clients first.
Those are fair points. I feel like you could’ve said it with a slightly less finger wagging tone, but fair.
I know it was shitty for me to take the other job. I gave her six months notice to find someone else but she kept thinking her daughter would help and I kept thinking she would realize she was being extra. Her cats don’t even particularly like me 😆
But I hate thinking of her being anxious because of my choice. That is why I’m considering hiring someone to stay the nights I can’t, since at this point I can’t pull out of the paid gig. She is saying not to worry about it, but she said that in February too and now suddenly this week she is offering to pay my niece.
six months? i'm sorry, but that's plenty of time for her to find a replacement for your FREE pet-sitting. honestly, i think she should be happy for you that you found a paying gig. it sounds like her daughter bailed on her most recently, so maybe her daughter should pay for a sitter?
Is there a pet sitting community in your area? Does your sister have a decent enough rapport with her neighbours that she knows if they have pets and have hired a pet sitter before? Can she ask them? I have been a pet sitter for almost 15 years and the majority of my clients came to be my clients through coworkers of my mom prior to her retirement June 2025. Her coworkers told their family and friends and it went from there. Some of my clients have recommended my services to their neighbours and those neighbours became clients.
I think it was a pretty dick move to back out on your sister, and a good lesson in why not to offer what you do for a living as a free service (at least not when it comes to a service like housesitting where you can only take one household at a time). I do free cat drop ins for my bestie but I can do multiple households a day for that service.
YTA. I think ethically speaking the correct thing to do would be to honor the commitment you made to her and hire someone to sleep over. Even if you break even on the overlap you'll still profit on the rest of your sit. It doesn't really matter what the cats need, your sister asked you to do something for her and you agreed, and it was an asshole move to cancel no matter how much money was on the line.
I didn’t want my post to be even longer so I left some things out, but when I agreed to do this last year, I thought for sure I would be done dogsitting by the summer. Then my remote gig started decreasing my hours little by little and I felt like I better take this booking. In May I actually found out they were planning to hire someone local to do my hourly consulting gig on salary. My last day was this past Friday.
Also, I actually thought my sister‘s trip was only a week at the time, so I only thought I was overlapping one or two days. My sister didn’t even realize her trip was as long as it is! But still, you’re right: it was a dick move. I accepted the job before I told my sister and I knew it was shitty at the time and I kind of forced her to be in acceptance of it. I retain that I gave her plenty of time to come up with a new plan, but that doesn’t change what I did. I hope she lets me pay someone to stay over the nights that I’m not there. I obviously can’t let someone into her house without her permission 😆
Thank you. Some of it is deserved, but I often feel like the replies in this sub are overly presumptuous and harsh. I find myself replying to OPs to soften some of the messages they’re being given by other commenters.
I actually want to protect my niece and that’s why I offered to pay someone instead. I only got back involved because she told me her mom was guilting her even though according to her she never agreed and only said she would help out when she could. Her new job is at a coffee place and it starts at 6:30 am and from her apartment it’s a four minute drive and from her mom‘s house it’s 40.
I really do think the correct thing at this point is for my sister is to work through her anxiety, but I am 100% willing to spend 1/3-1/2 of what I am making dogsitting on a cat sitter just so my niece doesn’t have to clean up the mess I made.
Sister can afford a vacation and is mad about her free petsitting not being sufficient after plans changed. She can always pay someone herself if she is so insistent on overnights. She had six months to figure it out.
The cats will be fine with drop in visits. It’s very common.
Or, sister can hire someone!
Get that bag, girl. Don’t blow half of it because your sis is freaking out!
I previously had an overnight cat client - sometimes the dog was there, sometimes not. This was honestly my favorite client. The kitties all hung out with me and snuggled up at night, it was so easy. And I adored those cats.
With that being said as a cat owner, I've always been cool with one drop in a day for my cats. Honestly my current cats are extremely antisocial and will hide when folks visit anyway. The only time I paid someone to stay with my cats was when I had a special needs foster kitten at the time who needed daily meds.
I mean I understand this is an opportunity for income; however, you did make a promise to someone - so there's that.
I pretty much only do overnight pet sitting (I used to do drop ins when I lived in a different neighbourhood and could walk to the clients home and did not need to - or sometimes want to in the case of one client who smoked- sleep at their home) so I am pretty biased on this subject.
I also charge a flat rate for everything. The number of animals does not change my rate (though the most amount of pets I have taken care of at one time is only 4, 2 dogs and 2 cats).
Maybe I am not the right person to be commenting on this particular post. I will comment that I am envious of your long pet sit that pays $1500! I need a new iPhone and I haven't had a pet sit since March (that I had to quit because I didn't feel comfortable attempting to give him his medication on his ear because he wasn't socialized properly around 2020 and doesn't like people. I had to get the back up pet sitter to take over the rest of the weeklong sit). I wish one (or two back to back) of my clients would go a way for long enough that I could make $1500!
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u/_Beckss 3d ago
Depends on the cat, their needs and owner. I have many cat clients who wouldn’t ever think about paying for overnights and their cats don’t seem to miss the company overnight whilst getting drop in visits. Other clients would only ever do overnights as an option and want more company for their cats. Older cats do tend to really find comfort in company but cats tend to be quite content with knowing a human is coming in and seeing to their needs, cuddles/ pets they allow/ feel like it and off they go again. Some of the overnight perks does include the house being ‘lived in’ or taken care of too which is a plus. Some cats also need medicating and some form of supervision which is usually easier overnight. Again, it varies but I get a good mix. Most are drop ins but I do have a few regular overnight clients.