How much to pay a teenager to take care of two cats?

[Amira]

My son has been asked to feed and clean the litter box for a neighbor's cats for 2 weeks while she's out of town. I have no idea what a fair amount is for him to be paid. Suggestions?

[Pegasus]

How many cats?  I'd suggest $5 a day for up to 2 cats, $10 for 3 cats, $15 for 4 cats.  This would be a bargain for your neighbor and a good hourly rate for your son.  I live in a low cost of living area.

 

Edited to add: Just noticed that you have 2 cats in the title.  Sorry, that's what I get for reading too fast.  I revise my suggestion to $5 for one visit per day or $10 if the neighbor wants him to go by twice each day.

[catz]

My 12 year old is given $5 for every dog visit he does for a neighbor. So $5 a visit seems fair to me for a younger kid doing a quick food and kitty litter visit.

 

The last time we had a kid watch our cats there was kitty litter everywhere and one of the cats she admitted not seeing the entire time. Our toilet was also left open unflushed. We keep the lids down so the cats won't drink out of there. Gross. Encourage him to shake treats and hang out until he at least can get a visual on the cat(s) and keep everything as tidy as it was left.

[Pegasus]

 Encourage him to shake treats and hang out until he at least can get a visual on the cat(s) .

 

Not always possible, depending on the cat(s) personality.  Mine hide when a pet sitter stops by.   As long as food is disappearing and the litter box needs cleaning, you sometimes have to just assume the cat is doing ok.

 

I don't really want a pet sitter crawling around my house, looking under beds, etc.

[Amira]

He'll be going over twice a day. Apparently the neighbor had suggested $30 for the entire two weeks at one point, but that seems pretty low to me. I'm going to encourage him to ask for more.

[zoobie]

Whatever would be a fair hourly wage. $30 for 2 weeks? Would your neighbor shovel poop for $2/hr? A pet sitter would charge ~$30 per day!

[mommymilkies]

Wow. I had no idea people actually paid for these things. I've had people check on the food for my five cats and feed the beta for free, and I've done similar for others. $15 a day to feed cats? Really?

[Pegasus]

He'll be going over twice a day. Apparently the neighbor had suggested $30 for the entire two weeks at one point, but that seems pretty low to me. I'm going to encourage him to ask for more.

 

Yikes!  That works out to $1 per visit (2 visits per day x 14 days).  Only if the neighbor is a good friend!  Seriously, if the neighbor has to hire it out to someone who pet sits professionally, she'll be paying a lot more than what we've suggested here for your son.  Boarding the cats somewhere is even higher.

 

Yes, we've done pet sitting for free and had it done for free for us, but only by friends or family.  We pay anyone else.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

Wow. I had no idea people actually paid for these things. I've had people check on the food for my five cats and feed the beta for free, and I've done similar for others. $15 a day to feed cats? Really?

 

I know it would cost more to board a pet, but $15 a day seems high for cats.  I've never been gone for two weeks though, our neighbors will check in when we are gone for a few days.  When we are gone for a long stretch we use one of those feeders that hold several days of dry food.

[Dmmetler]

I pay $10/day for two cats, a tank of frogs (and one of feeder crickets) and a snake. The cats rarely come out for pet sitters, the frogs..well, they tend to pretend that they're rocks when someone looks at them, and the snake can be ignored except for thawing a mouse for her once a week, so mostly, I just ask them to look for evidence that everyone is alive, give everyone food/water as appropriate, and not worry about whether they've actually seen all the animals. I base my rate on babysitting-in general, you can't find a teen to babysit for less than $10/visit, whether you have one child or several. I do tend to give bonuses for longer trips-it's a lot more work to manage a 14 day trip, where they'll have to change the frog water, feed the snake and remove snake poop, and change two litter boxes than a 4 day one, where all the messy stuff can wait until we get back.

[Amy in NH]

My son has been asked to feed and clean the litter box for a neighbor's cats for 2 weeks while she's out of town. I have no idea what a fair amount is for him to be paid. Suggestions?

 

I pay an adult friend $10/day to come twice per day to care for a flock of sheep (let them in and out, feed at night), a flock of chickens (let them in and out), our dog (feed twice per day, let out to the doghouse in the morning and in to the crate at night, and feed two barn cats.  She has to drive about 3 miles each way, too.  I tried to pay her more and she wouldn't let me.

[Annie G]

We hire a teenage boy to tend our cat while we're out of town. He comes once a day, stays long enough to play with the cat, and feeds him.  We pay $10 a day and it's a bargain. Our cat is an older Siamese and really needs human interaction.  When we come home, the cat is mad at us (he meows loudly for a day or two and refuses to sit with us), but because he's had daily petting and care, he's not destroying things.  We used to come home to shredded toilet paper and paper towels, my wall quilts pulled off the walls...and a very cranky cat.  

 

 

[JustEm]

I'm a professional pet sitter and I charge $10 per visit for cats (number of cats does not matter)  as long as there are no huge medical issues that would keep me at the house longer than 15 minutes. A 30 minute visit would be $12 and an hour would be $15.  Some people have me come every other day, some once a day, some twice a day.  I would tell your son to at least ask for $10/day.  I would do that rate for a neighbor even if I was coming twice if they were easy cats and I only had to walk next door or across the street.  

[catz]

Well, he should ask if he should do a visual on the cats. If someone shook treats and spoke, both my cats would easily come out. I wouldn't want people digging around under our scary beds either. I can see that would definitely household/cat dependent.

 

$30 for 2 visits a day at 14 days? No way! If this is a purely paid deal (they aren't taking care of your animals on vacation for you or something like that), I'd think at least $100. I'd also ask why on earth they need 2 visits PER DAY?

[KungFuPanda]

I pay a friend $20/day to watch my dog. She needs the money and it saves me a bundle on a kennel. Besides, my dog is neurotic and a kennel would make him nuts. This friend is a dog person. She brings her teen boys with her and they feed the dog, let him out, and play with him until he's tired. I only expected feeding/letting out but they just can't stand to leave without playing with the poor lonely creature. We might leave him home for a long weekend once or twice a year.

 

$5 a day sounds about right to me. Maybe $30/week since it's a multi-day gig. Unless you have some animals that the neighbor sometimes watches I see no reason NOT to pay the kid fairly.

 

That said . . . the kid might be happier with $30/2 weeks than he would having to have the conversation about money, or losing the job if she's miffed.

[Cinder]

We recently paid a 12yo neighbor $5/day to watch our cat plus a couple other things. One cat, feed, clean litter pan. We also asked her to bring our trash bin up the driveway after trash pickup and water our 2 tomato plants each day. 

 

ETA: She only came over once a day and with everything probably spent 30 mins at most, including the time it took to walk to our house and back home.

[Kate in Arabia]

Today is my last day cat sitting for a family here; they were gone four weeks and paid me the equivalent of abt $20 per day for three cats.  I go twice a day.  In the mornings I am there at least an hour.  I feed them, clean the litter, brush the cats (two are long-haired, one is short-haired but with a dense undercoat that mats), lightly sweep around the apartment (lot of cat hair), water the plants, and sit for a little while to play with/pet the cats.  In the evenings I go again to feed them and sit a bit if I have time.

 

I don't know the people at all, they put out a message in our expat mailing list looking for a sitter.

[QueenCat]

My son charges $5/visit inside the neighborhood. Doesn't matter how many animals. If he has to drive, than he charges $7. Most people pay him more than he charges.

[J-rap]

We pay the neighbor boy $10/day for taking care of our dog, but that's coming over twice/day and playing with him in the backyard. (He keeps refusing the money altogether, but I keep sneaking it to him somehow, sometimes in movie gift certificates if he absolutely won't take the cash.)

 

For a cat, will it be a hang out for awhile type of visit, or come and go in 5 minutes/once a day? If it's the latter, then I think $5/day is plenty, or even $25/week.

 

Of course it also depends on the rates in your area, I suppose. I can leave my dog at a place out in the country for $10/day.

[Catwoman]

He'll be going over twice a day. Apparently the neighbor had suggested $30 for the entire two weeks at one point, but that seems pretty low to me. I'm going to encourage him to ask for more.

That is insanely low!!! There is no way your ds should accept that deal!!!

 

Your neighbor knows full well how much it would cost to kennel his pets, and he's trying to take advantage of your ds's age and good nature by offering him so little. He should be thrilled that a trusted neighbor is willing to take care of the cats so they can remain happy and comfortable in their own home while he is away, and he should be willing to pay the going rate for the service your ds will be providing, not try to rip him off because he's a kid. :glare:

[Parrothead]

My son has been asked to feed and clean the litter box for a neighbor's cats for 2 weeks while she's out of town. I have no idea what a fair amount is for him to be paid. Suggestions?

Close neighbor or does he have to hoof it to get there?

 

How much work is he doing while there? Is it a 5 minute job of checking food and water levels and shopping a couple piles from the box or is he to sit and socialize with the cats?

 

Next door neighbor and he is there no more than a few minutes a day I'd say a couple dollars a day, plus a bonus for really doing a good job on the litter.

 

More travel time and more responsibility should be paid more.

[Parrothead]

Also location matters. If this is occurring in the city with a higher COL the pay should reflect that. If this is a rural area where neighbors do things like this for each other the pay should be reflective. Some of the costs y'all are citing for visiting a cat would be what people around here pay for boarding.

[Jeannie in NJ]

when we go to Disney which is always for 8 or 9 days, we pay our adult nephew $300 total. But then we have 8 cats and our nephew has to drive 30-40 min. each way. He also has a regular full time job so he comes after work. He has grown up with cats so knows how to take care of them . We are happy that we have someone we trust and that our cats are well taken care of. He of course feeds them, does litter boxes and plays with them. He also collects our mail and newspapers.

 

I think your son should get about $5 a day, especially since he will be going over twice a day.

[Amira]

She lives in the same building we do, so the visits will be quick. We live in an expensive urban area. I'm leaning toward his asking for $60-$75 for the two weeks which would be about $2-$2.50 per visit.

 

When he talked to her last night, she offered $30 and asked if that was okay. I wasn't there, but he didn't know if that was low, and when he said okay, she commented that he wasn't much of a negotiator. My dh is the one who knows the neighbor (I barely know her, but he works with her), so he'll help my son make sure he gets paid more.