Don't let the pythons eat the guinea pigs

3 days ago

3 min read

A few years ago, we headed off to have a look at different places along the east coast, so I booked not one, but five house sits in a five-month period. Typical me, we’d never done any before but rather than go in slowly I jumped in; feet first, full pelt!

The final day of house sit number one came around and I began wiping the antique marble basin in the ensuite. I wiped again, and again. The mark from the base of a bottle was still clearly visible. I scrubbed again. It still didn’t move. I ran out to Bill yelling, ‘I think I’ve ruined the antique basin!’ just as the homeowners pulled up. Dollar signs raced through my head – so much for a cheap holiday. How much was it going to cost us? Goodbye good review!! As I sheepishly invited the owner into her ensuite and glumly pointed at the basin, she laughed, ‘Oh, that. No, that’s always been there!’ The relief was instant and a lesson learnt; have a good look at the areas of the home you will be using so you know what is or isn’t broken before you settle in!

At house sit four we arrived to look after goats and guinea pigs amongst other pets. ‘The goats are great,’ we were told, ‘they never wander anywhere. Just don’t move the guinea pig cage or else the pythons will eat them.’ Now, as a resident of South Gippsland, pythons are not something I’m familiar with. I don’t mind snakes, but I wasn’t excited about the idea of them eating pets we were in charge of.

As we were being introduced to the other pets and having their routines explained to us, we turned around just in time to see the goats wandering off down the road. Luckily, the owners and Bill were able to round them up quickly and put them back in their paddock. I must say, at that point I did wonder if I’d chosen the right house sit for us.

On day four, after attending to the outside animals, Bill came back and announced, ‘I’ve just moved the guineapigs like we were asked!’ My face said it all, ‘What’s wrong?’ he muttered. I very quickly explained, with lots of arm flapping and probably a slightly raised voice, that he had misheard, the instruction had been not to move the guinea pigs. We raced down to where the guinea pig cage was, quickly pulled it back to its original location and counted guinea pigs. Still two! Phew. When we departed the following day, as previously arranged, we were glad to say all pets were in their allocated houses and alive!!

At our most recent house sit, we divided the chores. Bill looked after the chooks; I looked after the veggie patch and garden. We both looked after the two gorgeous dogs. This time the instruction was easy, ‘Don’t let the broccolini go to seed.’ I tried; I really did. We ate more broccolini in six weeks than we’ve eaten in all of 2026, but still the broccolini went to seed.

The other instruction was to walk the dogs each day; somewhere off lead, preferably at the local dog walking beach where the dogs would see their mates. Easy. Or so we thought. It was a little frustrating that one dog, Winnie, loved chasing the ball but wouldn’t return it, or so we thought. Bill, who had been giving this a lot of thought and had been observing Winnie carefully said, ‘She does return it, but only if I’m standing where she wants me to be. You watch, when Winnie wants to go to the right of the beach, she’ll drop the ball 3 metres to my right.’ Bill was spot on. We thought we’d been walking the dogs, but Winnie had been walking us for weeks!!