Hiring me to work as a professional pet sitter requires a huge leap of faith on the part of my potential clients. After all, I will be spending a great deal of time in someone's home when they aren't there. People have to not only trust me to care for their pets, but to repect their property as well as their privacy.
While my client's lifestyles run the gamut from fairly modest to very wealthy, for the most part everyone keeps their homes neat and organized--especially if I am scheduled to spend a week or so caring for their pets while they go out of town.
One day, back in the fall, I received a call from a couple who planned to go away for a four-day weekend to visit their daughter's college on the east coast. As always, I arranged a free initial consultation to discuss pet care expectations. I wasn't familiar with the address they gave me, but mapquest took care of that, and off I went.
The drive took me toward the outskirts of town, and as I bounced down the mile-long, weed-covered, pothole-filled driveway, apprehension started to creep in. A huge victorian home loomed in front of me. Shutters dangled crazily from either side of the upstairs windows and ivy covered the entire front porch. I tried to peer in through the large front window, but stacks of cardboard boxes blocked the view from the inside. For the first time since I started this job, I regretted not telling anyone where to look for my dismembered body should I turn up missing.
I shoved my way through the overgrown shrubbery to reach the front screen door. Just as I was about to knock, a large black labrador retriever came bounding toward me and plowed right through the broken mesh and knocked her impressive forehead smack into my thighs. Clearly tickled to have company, she wagged her whole butt and sniffed my pants and shoes with unbridled enthusiasm.
At that moment, the lady of the house made her appearance. She wore a long, shapeless sundress and dirty keds. Her gray hair was braided in a ponytail that stretched past the middle of her back.
"Emma!" She scolded. "Show some manners to our guest."
She introduced herself and invited me inside. The home must have been an amazing showplace back in it's day. I admired the grand staircase, ornate moldings and beautiful chandelier in the foyer. But, as she lead me toward the kitchen I took in the stacks of newspapers, bags of junk and piles of clutter that covered every available surface.
In what must have been the formal living room, I spied three (three!) pianos. A dusty old upright shoved against a wall, a lovely grand covered in mounds of paperwork, and a fairly new electric model blocking the gigantic fireplace. An enormous gray cat lounged on a giant pile of bathroom towels heaped on the davenport. He turned his head and gave me the once over. We blinked at each other for a minute, then he yawned and went back to sleep on towel mountain.
I met the husband in the kitchen. As I reached out to shake his hand, the large green parrot sitting on his shoulder leaned down and tried to take a chunk out of my wrist with it's razor sharp beak. The man laughed uproariously at that adorable manuveur.
"Don't mind Louie! He's just playin' around. Right Louie?"
In response, Louie lifted his tail feathers and dropped a load of bird dookie right on the kitchen floor. The couple ignored the mess and led me to the other side of the kitchen. Every square inch of the butcher block island was covered in food crusted dishes, greasy pots, and dirt covered gardening tools. Shopping lists, coupons and unopened mail added to the mess.
We shoveled our way through the debris to get to the laundry room. A large, murky fishtank was set up on the counter next to the washer, and the cat's food and water dish sat next to it. I tried my best to focus as they ran through the feeding procedure for the dog, the cat, the bird and the fish.
We stood there chatting as if it were perfectly normal to be standing in piles of styrofoam packing peanuts up to our ankles. The two of them were very excited about their upcoming trip to visit their daughter. They were both professors at a local private college and had the time off for fall break. Neither acknowledged or even seemed to notice the state of absolute chaos around us.
Next, they directed me to a bathroom which stood across the hall from the laundry room. The long vanity held a half-dozen tall stacks of magazines. A white corner shelf contained hundreds of gothic figurines--each one more disturbing than the next. The large bathtub held about eight inches of water. The husband explained that Emma preferred to drink her daily intake of water from the tub and it was to be changed daily. It was the biggest dog dish I'd ever encountered.
Finally, the consultation was over and I agreed to hold down the fort while they were out of town. As I drove away, past the weedy lawn and helter-skelter yard, I decided to take it all in stride. I had seen enough episodes of the show 'Hoarders' to realize what was going on here.
At any rate, the pets in this home all seemed happy and healthy, and my job was to keep them that way.
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