Background
My wife, 12 year old son, and I have just completed a two month round-the-world trip. This was my wife's reward for four years of hard work culminating in her recent successful completion of a Nursing Degree at Uni.
Whilst our neighbours were willing to look after the animals for us whilst we were away we felt that it was not reasonable to put that burden on them for the two months that we were going to be gone, especially as it covered the school holiday period.
We engaged a house sitter through a house sitting agency to look after the property and the animals whilst we were away, and to collect our mail. We also did not want the property to be uninhabited for obvious reasons. The agency take no responsibility for the people who list through them but we did a check of the reference that she supplied and this was glowing.
We signed a housesitting agreement with Jaye-Cee (not her real name) which defined expectations on both sides. There was also a list of contact details (Farm supplies, water cartage, vet, etc) in case anything should go wrong. We reduced the previously agreed bond from $500 to $200 so she would have funds available to her in case of emergency. We agreed to reimburse her on our return for any reasonable expenses incurred on our behalf. Normal utility costs (electricity, gas, telephone, etc) were to be to her account.
We have three small breed cattle (Dexter crosses), one miniature bull, one dog, two ducks and twenty odd chooks. I purchased sufficient food to last them for the period we were to be away at their usual rate of consumption. We have three 22,500 litres rainwater tanks interconnected and a backup 1200 litre tank. I purchased 20,000 litres of drinking water less than two weeks before leaving so that there was approximately 25,000 litres in the main tanks and the backup tank was full when we left the property on 12th November. We have two dams on the property, one of which supplies irrigation water for our veggie garden and orchard through an automatic watering system. The other is a backup and provides water for the cattle who roam freely on the property (54 acres). Whilst the water level in the irrigation dam was low because of the prolonged dry spell, there should have been sufficient to last at least a couple of weeks at the normal rate of usage. There was plenty of water (several months normal supply) in the backup dam.
The housesitter arrived on Monday, 9th November and over the next three days we explained how everything worked and shared our meals with her. Things seemed to be going well but on Wednesday evening, after a few drinks, she revealed that she had caused major problems for a person whose house she had looked after in the Northern Territory. When I photocopied her driver’s licence it showed her address as Gympie caravan park, although in our earlier discussions she had said she was staying at a caravan park at Ballina, and her house sitter advert implied she was from North QLD. Whilst both these were a cause of concern, nevertheless we left confident that everything would be OK