Trusting cat sitters with keys

Giving someone a set of your house keys can feel a bit strange. That’s completely understandable, as you’re placing your trust in the hands of someone you may have just met. We get it, and we’ve felt the same initial anxiety when we’ve used a new cat sitter in the past.

With that in mind, we felt it’d be useful for our clients if we explained exactly what we do (and don’t do) with your keys and how you can be assured of the level of care that we take with them.

Retaining Keys: We normally retain keys for our regular clients and for any short notice bookings. Some clients also choose to leave keys in an agreed hiding place or inside an external key safe. The keys are normally retained after the each visit just in case your return dates/flights change or your are delayed. The last thing we want to do is post your keys back through your door only to find out that your return is delayed by a day or two, leaving us with no way to access the property. So, to be on the safe side, your keys are quickly returned to you only after you have informed us that you are safely back home.

Storing Keys: Any keys that we do retain are securely stored in an internal key safe. Each key is colour-coded with a tag and a number only, so no information that could identify the property or the property owner is displayed on the keyring. We have an encrypted, password-protected list of which colour key belongs to which house. Simple precautions like this can make a real difference.

Alarm & Security Codes: If your property has an alarm then we will need to know the code so the alarm can be deactivated upon arrival and switched back on again when we leave. As with the key security method we described above, any alarm codes are stored digitally within an encrypted, password-protected list that tells us the code for a particular house.

DBS Checked: For your reassurance, we are both DBS checked. The GOV.UK website allows us to share our DBS certificates with you so you can view them online. Just ask us and we can provide you with a one-time login for the GOV.UK website. We can also show you our printed certificates that are provided by the UK Government as part of the DBS checks.

Trust and reliability are two of our core values that underpin everything we do. Hopefully the above advice will help to answer any questions you may have. For anything that isn’t covered please give us a call or send us a message using our enquiry form and we’ll get back to you.