I’ve just spent my evening dealing with an unwanted house guest…a field mouse in the kitchen!
This is the second house sit I’ve done with an extra mouse…both times I’ve trapped it, and taken it away to release 
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Now I’m wondering if anyone else has had any extra surprise “guests” when house sitting?! It cant be just me!
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Hi @PetsSit we had “surprise” geckos visiting us in the bedroom & lounge on a recent sit after they fell in when we opened the front door! They are very quick and certainly good at hiding though so it took quite a while to locate them!
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Often.
Mice
Birds
Chipmunks
Bats (in my bedroom)
Snakes
Spiders (huge 4-5 inches)
And an assortment of other crawly things.
Some came on their own fuel while others, well…
Hey, look what the cat brought in 
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I’ve just left a sit with 2 cats. On my penultimate day they brought in a baby bird. I managed to save it and it flew off. Funnily enough that was my first ‘present’ as a sitter but when I had cats of my own, years ago, I had all sorts brought in & often had to get my neighbour to deal with them!
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Oh my god! I couldn’t cope with all those! Bats in your bedroom!!!
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I confess I did get the lady of the house to catch them for me and she did, bare handed and showed me. Followed by a lovely evening outside watching them fly out of the attic and great stories about them and their habits.
Moments I treasure.
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Just a few……
Ants in the bathroom and kitchen
Bat in bedroom .
Moths that were eating the carpets and curtains.
Mice, voles and shrews daily bought in by the cat( some dead & some alive and squeaking)
House Martin flew into the kitchen and then into the corridor for safety whilst being hunted by a bird of prey who was chased off by the two dogs we were looking after!!
Not all on the same sit 
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However they all happened this year on THS sits …we tend to sit in the countryside where it’s all part of normal life and expected .
Spiders too of course lots of those didn’t think to mention them ….
When you sit cats and often, but not always, in a rural location you can easily expect some “presents”, especially if they are allowed out overnight - birds, mice, voles, shrews, geckoes, squirrels, rabbits - I’ve had them all, both dead and alive!
In 15 sits I’ve only had a couple of deceased ‘guests’ the cat brought me including half a baby bird, a quarter of a mouse and a load of feathers!
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I’m glad its not just me!
There was another mouse overnight, which the mouse trap dealt with…
Both sits with mice haven’t had a cat, only a very uninterested dog! Still love my countryside sits though 
I would love to know your top tips for getting rid of bat(s) from the house.
Hi @dma “everything you need to know about bats but were afraid to ask” 
“Our vision is of a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together”
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Indeed, pet sitting is an avenue for incredible education.
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A bat once - it had come down the chimney. It was then just sitting on the living room carpet so I put a glass over it, a piece of card under the glass and out we went.
A rat caught in a bird feeder.
On the sit before last, the cat had caught and killed a mole which he left on the outside of the cat flap.
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I was sitting in rural France and there was a bat flying around the bedroom upstairs. I could not believe how fast they are. I opened all the windows and turned off all the lights and it flew out. Phew! It might have been attracted by the bedside light which was on.
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This wasn’t actually in the house but in the garden on a very rural sit. It was gone 2am and I woke up to a very strange noise, I can only describe it as a mechanical scraping sound and I could also hear a dog barking.
There happened to be a very bad thunderstorm that night so we ended up getting up and went outside on the covered terraced area to watch the storm and to see if we could see where the strange noise was coming from.
It then became apparent that the sound was coming from one of the water butts at the side of the house. On closer inspection we discovered a creature which we initially thought was a deer, because of its very big ears and long snout which were visible above the water level. John then got a broom and put it underneath the animals torso and slowly lifted it out of the water and lowered it gently on to the ground. In the end it became apparent that it was a dog which we now know to be a Podenco Canario, a breed of dog used by the Spanish for hunting. He was clearly exhausted and quite literally dragged himself away from us using only his fore legs as his hind legs were totally useless through exhaustion. After 4 or 5 metres it just collapsed so we let it rest and put some leftover cooked chicken by his muzzle and a couple of hours later the dog had gone along with some of the chicken.
We have no idea where he came from or how he ended up in the water butt, we can only assume that he thought he could jump up on the water butt to get up on to the roof and sadly fell in.
We were just so relieved that we had got up to investigate the sound and watch the storm and found the poor little doggie who lives to fight another day.
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Lol, lost count actually, we have sits where the Cat(s) bring the live ones in! my Teen Daughter has become very good at catching them with usually a piece of card and a bowl and putting them outside, often it seems they have been injured by the Cat and end up back inside, okay the Cat leaves the insides inside for us to clean up! lol.x We had a sit where the House just had mice, it was 1200yr old house, over 4 floors, lot’s of holes, missing floor boards etc, 3 Cat’s had recently moved into the house on 3rd Floor, they all sat looking at this Mouse, just stunned, looking at each other like “what is that? we heard about these things, but what do we do now???” it was really funny, we caught it, put it outside, however think it lived in the house, so pretty sure it came back in and went behind what ever board it lived under or behind. x
Lol, we had a sit where the young Kids let slip that the attic was fully of bats, so if we went up there “don’t worry about the Bats that live in there” it was very cute, the Parents just hung their heads with the look " omg, things kids say" lol.
You just go with it, we recently had a repeat sit, they had a pond put in since our last stay, we arrive as the HO had left at 3am, to a dead bird, a fish and a mouse entrails, it’s like they were saying “welcome back” lol. The Fish got us, the poor fish was clearly dead, way to much blood on the cream carpets, the HO said " chuck it back in the Pond, it will perk back up" lol. Sitting has been great learning for my Autistic Teens, opened up their whole worlds, re every part of life, animals your are looking after, animals you rescue from the animals you are sitting too. x
Hey @Manda,
It is a great learning experience for kids (and older). I recently watched a youtube clip of Jackson Galaxy (the cat expert guy) visiting a US prison with some guys doing long sentences for very serious crimes. They had recently introduced cats and dogs from a kill shelter to inmates. They had to care for and socialise the animals to get them adopted out.
It was amazing to see men that had never felt or given love, care for cats and dogs so carefully.
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