What housesitting is really like in Charlotte. 3 stories and Carol the cat
Housesitting is a tender subject for me. I did it once for three weeks and I fell in love, got my heart broken and learned to love again.
Her name was Carol.
She lived in an airy home in Mint Hill. The month was July. She was a cat. Maybe she was a Birman or Calico breed. It didn’t matter when I looked into those lipid blue eyes. (See above.)
Her given name didn’t reflect her old-world grace. “That cat is a Carol,” I told my girlfriend. Within a day, she started answering to her new name.
A photo posted by @lookitsjoanne on Jul 22, 2015 at 10:52am PDT
//><!--My affair with Carol was fleeting yet passionate. She lounged on my computer, her fur getting stuck in my keyboard. When she meowed, I asked what was wrong. She’d lick herself or flinch at a seemingly imaginary object.//--><!
I found a flea taking a hike on her fluffy neck, and that was not the only one. I tried spraying her with apple cider vinegar while wearing yellow gloves. She looked back at me like a woman betrayed.
“I thought we had something,” she seemed to say.
The next day, I drove 40 minutes to The Humane Society, where they de-fleaed her instantly with a pill. It cost $16. We were closer than ever.
I never got to tell the owner about the fleas. I never saw Carol again. My experience is only one housesitting tail (yes, tail) of girl meets cat, girl renames cat, girl defleas cat, human mom of cat never knows girl saved cat.
Charlotte’s full of housesitting stories – good, bad and in between. Here are three.
(1) Eccentrics with the good books: It seems the best case for housesitting in Charlotte is when the owner is eccentric, well-read and spiritually at peace with themselves.
Local Charlottean Mel Hartsell told me they housesat for a Buddhist friend with a gray stone house on Lake Norman and a library of books on mindfulness. “Her home was an oasis.”
A friend of mine housesat for three months while the homeowner drank red wine in Italy, so there was good leftover food in her fridge and yet another library of books to read. She lived in the Cotswold area and by the looks of her legs on Facebook, shopped organic and likely did yoga while others only wore yoga pants en route to buying a box of Birthday Cake Oreos.
Brewery and Yoga! (@ Olde Mecklenburg Brewery in Charlotte, NC) https://t.co/6lOaoZEr1r pic.twitter.com/Vb3jJCfGkC
— Daniel P. Cotter (@mdcotter30) April 14, 2015
(2) Blood suckers beware: Local artist Christina Welsh told me this story from her early years housesitting.
“On every wall in every room, the owner had hung signs/reminders stating vampires would not be tolerated or permitted in her life. She was a mature woman, probably in her late 50’s early 60’s. I was young and goth. …
“(The owner) must have had a few leeches in her life and sought several sessions of therapy and determined the best possible way not to be a victim was to remind herself that those blood suckers were not welcome. I especially liked the framed note over the guest bed I stayed in while housesitting. Really added a sophisticated touch. The note said, ‘This is a vampire-free home.’ Too bad it wasn’t cross stitched.”
(3) No breaks allowed: Hartsell had briefly left the house they were watching in Plaza Midwood when everything went wrong.
“I got a call from the home owners. Apparently, the wind had blown the door open, and the alarm sounded. Thankfully, the neighbors came over to help, because I was so far away. The police had threatened to shoot the owners’ dog, but the neighbors really came through!”
Photo: Joanne Spataro. GIF: giphy.com.
This story was originally published September 20, 2015 at 10:00 PM with the headline "What housesitting is really like in Charlotte. 3 stories and Carol the cat."