Bay Area Cat Care (apartment, home, tenants)

[pontoon22]

Hi, I'm moving to the bay area end of June into early July. I'll be in the Bay Area interviewing from the evening of the 26th to the evening of the 29th of April. I plan to take a 1-2 week road trip from the end of June thru early July. I've been trying to find in-home care for my cat during at least the period of time of the road trip, and potentially from April 26-29 period to early July (that way I don't need to fly round trip twice). Does anyone know of an option other than a cat boarding place? Cat boarding places seem borderline cruel to me to keep my pet locked up for a month in a cage (granted, with play time, but still that's a lot of cage time and not a lot of fun time). I'm thinking of canceling my road trip if I can't figure something out. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[ServoMiff]

Try to make friends wherever you move in. That's what my wife and I did. We moved into our SF apartment in January, and one of our neighbors is a cat guy and he offered to take care of our cat while we went to Hawaii in March for 10 days, and then in return we watched his cat in April when he went on a retreat. It worked out perfectly for us and I think the we basically just swapped gift cards as a thank you. He also ended up inviting us to dinner with some of the former tenants of our building - it's actually cool when you talk to your neighbors sometimes.

There are paid pet sitter options out there, but I personally wouldn't want to pay what they want.

[pontoon22]

I'm potentially trying to find someone who will watch her before we move in, basically from a little over a month before we move in up until we move in.

[twins4lynn]

Have you thought of hiring someone through Task Rabbit? You can place an add and specify exactly what you would like them to do, etc. https://www.taskrabbit.com/?ref=ggl_...FQeUfgodMSoA4w

Or you can call local vet offices and see if they can recommend pet sitters.

[pontoon22]

TaskRabbit is hourly? The number of hours in a month and a half at an hourly rate of $27 would be insane...

[ServoMiff]

Really any service for what you're looking for is going to be insanely priced - sounds like you had it sorted out in your OP. Either pony up, put the cat in a standard boarding house, or change your trip itinerary.

[pontoon22]

If there was a service like taskrabbit where people could negotiate a fixed price, that would be more up my alley. For instance, I would pay $500 (same cost of some boarding places) if someone were to take her into their home for a month... I just don't like the idea of going to an untrustworthy place like Craigslist to try to find it.

[pontoon22]

My mom comes through with a winning idea... Keep the cat in Minnesota with my sister until I'm settled in our place in CA, then just have my mom/sister fly the cat to us!