My sister had rats, and sometimes when she wasn’t around she’d ask me to feed them some veggies & scrambled eggs. I’d stand there in the kitchen thinking to myself, what am I doing with my life right now, making scrambled eggs for a rat 
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We had a pet rat for a few years, really sweet. He actually moved countries with us a few times, from Ireland to England to Germany. This may sound terrible, and we didn’t do it often, but when he had his ‘out of cage’ explore time, and scrambling around on the wooden floor, sometimes we would clap our hands, and he’d jump up in the air, and then the little feet was scrambling for purchase, without finding any grip, in an effort to get going! It was funnier than any animation movie.
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A home owner in Canada reminding me how lucky I was to have the option to stay at her place, and I just needed to do her accounting and file her taxes for her…putting me at risk for federal tax fraud if I messed up.
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I don’t think it’s ridiculous to have pet rats. Amy type of pet is probably disliked by some sitters. That doesn’t make it a ridiculous request to advertise a rat sit.
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You’re right, the ridiculous part for me was that the sitter was expected to “cuddle” with the rats each day.
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But that also is not ridiculous. Rats are very social beings, and need regular human interaction and many rats like “cuddles”. They can be as affectionate as cats.
So, it may seem ridiculous to you if you are not familiar with rat as a pet and their needs, but it is not a ridiculous request from the owners part.
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I didn’t realise how affectionate rats could be, until I met a pet rat!
I once had a boyfriend with a pet rat called Jock McTavish. He was (the rat not the ex) super sweet, and rat cuddles for me were having him snuggle up on my shoulder when I was watching TV… though Jock did sometimes try to nibble my hair 
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I like the implication that the ex was not super sweet! (Hence being an ex, I guess!) 
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L🤣L — even a paid sitter wouldn’t agree to that!
And, yet, it will still poop all over the house😬
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We applied to a really nice looking sit once in a beautiful, mediaeval European city, with just 1 cat. Easy. Or so we thought. The HO’s response was not to say “Hello, thanks for applying” but to immediately drill us with a million questions about why we would want to sit there, what we would plan to do, how much experience we have, etc etc - all of which they could have found out if they simply read our profile 
Then they asked how long we’d be looking to leave the cat per day, as they “appreciated travellers” but didn’t want the cat left more than 2 - 3 hours max (which was never stated on the listing). We immediately declined. I kept seeing the same listing with the same dates posted over and over, weeks later, repeatedly going from 4 - 5 applicants back to 0 within days
Out of curiosity, I checked the listing a few months later, and their sitter had left a very poor review & vice versa - I’m so glad we never sat for them 3 hours max… For a cat… Sigh.
What I thought was hilarious is that the location was quite unique and THS would have very few, if any, local sitters living there - anyone going there would be a traveller
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This a good one:
we ask that our pets are well looked after with no vet bills on my return.
Really inviting.
Edited: I now think they may mean if the sitter looks properly after the pets, they won’t have to take them to the vet. Still, it seems they are more worried about the bills than the pets’ welfare and if something happens to them during the sit what’s the sitter supposed to do, let them die?
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We never let them run around too long. If theyvpooped we never saw it.
Rat pet sitting. I’ve thought about using this picture on my profile, but I’m afraid it might freak some people out.
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If you’re not up for rat sitting, how about sheep cuddling? I’ve just seen it on a sit with a lot more responsibilities - sheep cuddling seems to be the easy part.
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We had gerbils when I was a kid. They weren’t really “cuddly” but you could pick them up and pet them. From what I’ve read from people with rats, they can be very sweet and have distinct personalities and are also quite smart – these people really love them. So no, not ridiculous at all. It’s someone’s pet that needs attention. 
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We had gerbils and hamsters too as young kids. After that I never took care of any other animals till we started housesitting in our 50s! Now I have cared for huge numbers of different animals including Emus, llamas and hamsters but I have still never rat-sat!!
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I saw one recently where the owners only wanted a professional when it came to a pet sitter who was expierienced in training dogs. They expected you to drive their dog for twenty mins to a training paddock where you had to spent 55mins with his training, and then drive 20 mins back again. No mention of even giving you petrol allowance for this driving. But honestly…just wondering how much you would pay a proffesional dog trainer for a 55min one to one training session? It was showing nil applicants. I wonder why???
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We live in a semi-rural area and have septic as do all our neighbors. We can use TP but nothing else goes down the toilet, including no bleach. And we try not to use too much TP, either.
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By driving. Leave her in car.?