Walk the doors and windows your cat actually tests
General advice about keeping doors shut is useless to a sitter in an unfamiliar house; what prevents an escape here is the quirks of your home. Walk the sitter from room to room and demonstrate each one. Show how the back door looks closed but latches only when lifted slightly, how the kitchen window opens wide enough for your cat because the restrictor is broken, and how she waits behind the hallway curtain when she hears keys. Name the doors that must stay shut at all times — the porch, the room with the cat flap fitted by a previous owner, the garage with its side door to the street. If she has a known technique, such as darting between feet at the front door or climbing the coat stand to reach a fanlight, say so plainly and show the counter-move you use.
Build a door routine the sitter can repeat
Turn your own habits into a sequence the sitter follows every visit. A reliable pattern for a door-dashing cat is: come in, close the outer door behind you before greeting her, and if a delivery or a bin run means opening up again, shut her first in a safe room with a litter tray and water for those two minutes. Agree where she is fed, because a sitter who carries food bowls through doorways creates exactly the moment a hungry cat slips past. Decide the rule for windows in warm weather — which may open, on what setting, and which never open while she is in the room. Write the sequence down in visit order so a tired sitter on a late visit follows the list rather than improvising.
Hiding places, handling, and what never to do
Show the sitter where your cat hides when the doorbell, vacuum, or unfamiliar footsteps frighten her — under the spare bed, inside the wardrobe, behind the boiler — so a sitter who cannot find her checks those spots calmly before concluding she has escaped. Explain how she accepts being picked up, if she does at all, and warn against the handling she hates, such as being grabbed from above or carried past an open door. List the household hazards that double as escape routes in your home: a tumble dryer she climbs into, a loft hatch left open, a cat flap to a conservatory whose outer door is often ajar. A sitter who knows the hiding places also knows where to look first, quietly, if a door was ever left open a moment too long.
The first-minutes plan if she gets out anyway
Prevention can fail, so rehearse the response before you travel. The sitter should secure any other pets, leave the door she escaped through ajar with food just inside, search the immediate garden and under cars and porches with a torch, and phone you straight away rather than spending an hour searching alone and telling you later. Give the sitter your mobile, a neighbour's number, the vet's number, and permission to knock on the immediate neighbours' doors. Agree in advance whether the sitter may post in local groups on your behalf and what details to use, so no time is lost debating it during the emergency itself.
Leaving the briefing where the sitter will actually find it
A walkthrough fades by the third visit, especially the small details such as which door needs lifting to latch. Handing the whole briefing over through KinsLe Care Pass puts your cat's routine, your home's escape quirks, and the emergency steps in the sitter's hands for every visit, so she can re-check the door sequence at your front step instead of relying on memory.