Completely depends on how it was arranged.
Sounds like she’s getting a free holiday and you’re getting a free housesitter. Cats are not hard to look after and watering the plants is not difficult. Get her a nice gift (lots of holiday places now have souvenirs specifically designed for giving to people who looked after your pets while you were away) and do pay her if there’s an emergency which interrupts her holiday, like a cat being ill.
They’re cats. They won’t be inconveniencing her.
Please keep me in mind as somebody who would be happy to have lodgings in Hawaii for the low low cost of watering plants and feeding cats.
I agree. Vacation rentals in Hawaii aren’t cheap, and it’s really nice to have a house rather than a hotel room. It’s already a great deal for the housesitter. Feeding the cats and watering the plants is a small price to pay.
I really don’t think it’s about the house sitter getting the ‘good deal’ of having a place to stay. Though I would agree, they are.
This person is doing you a service, watching your house and pets. Unless I’m mistaken those two things, you value extremely highly. Haven’t you enjoyed, in your absence, the comfort of knowing your home and pet are safe and well tended?
For the service, they should be compensated. A gift from your trip or cash, or a combination, is up to you.
Ideally they will also feel gratitude for having been offered your home, and leave you some small thank you gift!
Everyone seems to be winning here, this should be easy. I think the OP should just do as she feels. Let hubby step back and stay entirely outside of it, if he doesn’t feel it.
They’re being compensated by being given free accommodation. The gift is not payment, it’s a gift.
This. As long as they’re normal, healthy cats (no insulin shots, vet visits, etc). If it were dogs or unhealthy cats, completely different story.
Also, we don’t know the length of stay. If it’s a long weekend? Then not a big deal. A week to two weeks? Well, now we’re getting into kitty litter territory.
This. I wouldn’t pay her.
If you’ve already set it up without offering to pay, then there’s no reason to pay her. If she’d have wanted payment, that would have already been part of the discussion. You don’t agree to do someone a service without also agreeing on a price.
Totally depends on the cats! 
Agreed, the compensation is the lodging. There’s no need for additional compensation. Gifts are separate.
Depends. Are the cats and plants alive when you return?
Seriously, upon your arrival, if everything is how you envisioned it would be, then definitely reward this person.
You can’t go away and leave cats for two days while you pursue a romance or whatever. Watching a house in exchange for free use is one thing. Being responsible for pets is quite another. Living in Orlando, I’ve had people come and enjoy the sights while I am out of town. They care for my dogs, make sure the house is okay, the pool filter runs properly and take in the mail. It has never once occurred to me not to pay them.
Sure, you can. That’s one of the advantages of cats.
What? Unless the cats have special medical needs, they absolutely can be left for two days.
I heartily endorse everything you’ve said in this thread.
Mercenary wise - you’d have to pay for that service if they weren’t providing it and it would cost more than a token $100 or $200 dollars I’d imagine. Plus it is someone you trust.
I’d come to a number in my head that says “Hey, thanks.” as opposed to “here’s your paycheque” and, assuming that they have maintained the house at the level you left it in hand it to them on the way out and wish a them a good day.
If they do a shitty job though, keep the cash.
I heartily endorse everything you’ve said in this thread.
OP said:
I need a marriage ref. We have an acquaintance staying at our house while we’re out of town. She’s visiting from California, so she needed a place to stay (we live in Hawaii). So she’s got a free place to stay for her vacation. However, she is watering a ton of our plants and taking care of our 2 cats.
My husband thinks we shouldn’t pay her because she gets a free place to stay while we’re gone, but I disagree. Thoughts?
Mercenary wise - you’d have to pay for that service if they weren’t providing it and it would cost more than a token $100 or $200 dollars I’d imagine. Plus it is someone you trust.
I’d come to a number in my head that says “Hey, thanks.” as opposed to “here’s your paycheque” and, assuming that they have maintained the house at the level you left it in hand it to them on the way out and wish a them a good day.
If they do a shitty job though, keep the cash.
So, I’m taking this trip to Hawaii. Instead of renting a hotel room, a friend said I could stay at her place, as long as I water the plants and look after the cats.
I haven’t agreed yet, because I haven’t decided how much they should be paying me. What do you think?
In my book, this arrangement is one of mutual gift giving. You both get each other gifts for being there to help out. When my neighbors go away, we help with the cats and watering their plants because they’re cool people, not because they’re going to pay me money. OTOH, when a different neighbor asked to park in my driveway for an extended period, I charged her a modest weekly fee, since I needed to have the security of saying “our business arrangement is at an end.”
You can when it’s your own cats, sure. (I personally don’t, because ours go Velcro-kitty badly enough when someone comes in for half an hour a day, and I can’t imagine how bad they’d be if they were totally alone for that long.) When it’s someone else’s cats, not so much. The expectation when you’re pet sitting is that you will be there to feed, clean up after, and do a well-being check on the animals every. single. day. If a client were ever to find that you had just left their cats to their own devices for two days straight without making explicit prior arrangements to do so, your ass would be grass, and rightly so.
Likewise, when you agree to house-sit, the expectation is that you’re going to be there to sleep every night. That’s kind of the point of having a house-sitter instead of a pet-sitter.
How much value the friend in this situation is getting from this arrangement depends on a lot of factors. How close is the OP’s house to where the friend would otherwise want to stay? What kind of hotel would the friend otherwise be willing to pay for? How much time does the OP expect friend to spend at the house making it look not-empty? How flexible is the OP about that, and about the cats’ feeding schedule? And how obnoxious are the OP’s cats?
If it were my cats, I’d be embarrassed to ask someone to live with the little beasts and not throw in some cash or a gift. They’re wonderful, friendly, affectionate kitties, but they’re also kind of pains in the ass. They like to run across three rooms of hardwood to vomit on the one area rug in the house. They stealth puke hairballs right in front of the bathroom door while you sleep, so it’s not uncommon to step in a cold, squishy mess when you stagger up to piss in the middle of the night. They want to sleep on top of your face and sit in your lap while you’re on the toilet, and if you try to shut them out they cry and yowl and shove their little paws under the door. They run shrieking to their bowls every time you enter that end of the house within three hours of feeding time. If you eat in front of them, they start acting like they’re in a Sarah Maclachlin commercial. It’s impossible to watch television without one them ascending to the coffee table to perform the ritual Cleansing of the Asshole. Oh, and they’re contractually obligated to shit in the litter box the very second you scoop it, no matter how hard they have to strain to make that happen.
It’s not exactly the stuff vacation dreams are made of, ya know?
OP, I’d leave her enough cash for a decent dinner out, or bring her a really nice souvenir. That’s what friends have typically done for me when I’ve house sat, even when I was living in a tiny apartment with no pets and having a whole house and doggies all weekend was a huge treat for me.
That sounds A LOT like my cat. My mom housesits for us when we take a longer vacation than two days - fortunately, my cat is very stand-offish with other people, so my mom doesn’t get to enjoy all of the wonderful behaviours of my pain-in-the-ass cat. 