We'd like a solitude-seeking cat-lover to stay in our rural New Mexico home and look after our affection-craving cat, for 7 weeks this winter.
Our 6-y-o cat, Buddy would prefer a single woman or a couple; he doesn't warm up to men. Buddy fawns over his “mom” Marcy, nuzzles her and purrs and follows her from room to room, but when his “dad” Tom pets him, he walks away. When women friends come over, he greets them, but whenever a man comes over, he hides under a bed.
Our big adobe home is in an isolated rural location at 7,000 ft elevation, at the end of a dead-end road, 30 minutes from Albuquerque and 1 hour from Santa Fe. A perfect place for someone seeking solitude and quiet, such as a novelist or someone writing a PhD thesis. But if you need community, you’ll be lonely and bored here. We have no TV, though we do have internet.
If your hope is to escape the cold winter, this is not the place you’re looking for. But if you like to ski, there are 3 ski resorts within a short drive, and cross-country ski trails in the nearby National Forest.
There is no public transportation. The house sitter will need their own car.
We are asking the house sitter to pay half the estimated utility costs for their stay. We do have an option to leave the house vacant and board Buddy at a friend’s house for no charge; this would allow us to turn our thermostat down so low that the furnace would only kick on during the coldest nights, just enough to keep the pipes from freezing. So there would be almost no propane use, no electricity or water or firewood use.
But with someone living in the house the estimated expenses will be about $1200 for 7 weeks. We would like the house sitter to contribute half the expenses of their stay, or $600.
We'll supply firewood for the wood stove and fireplace, and we'll pay for electricity, water, and internet. The biggest utility expense is the propane furnace. We use 2 to 3 tanks full of propane every winter (at $1230 per fill-up). It's a very large house to heat, and the furnace is inefficient.
Besides caring for Buddy, the only other responsibility is tending the houseplants.