A sitter standing on your doorstep in the rain, holding a cat carrier's worth of responsibility, needs instructions that work first time. You need those same instructions to reveal as little as possible to anyone else. Both goals are achievable when access is treated as layers: the mechanics of entry, the boundaries inside, and the private details that travel by a separate, safer route than the welcome note on the counter.
Layer One: Entry, Written for a Stranger to Your Locks
Describe entry as a sequence the sitter performs, not a tour you once demonstrated. Name the door to use, where the key or keypad is, and the quirks that defeat newcomers: a lock that needs the door pulled toward you while turning, a handle that lifts before it locks, a porch light switch in an unexpected place. State what successful entry looks and sounds like, and what to do if it fails — wait, retry once, then phone you — so a stiff lock never escalates into a forced window.
Add the practical geography: where to park, which bins stay out, and whether a neighbour knows a sitter is visiting, so the visits look expected rather than suspicious. If the sitter is collecting a key from a lockbox or a trusted neighbour, say which arrangement applies and return the key by the same route, with collection confirmed when you get home as routine housekeeping rather than mistrust.
Layer Two: Alarms and Systems in General Terms
Describe the alarm in terms of actions, not codes on paper: where the panel is, that a code is entered on arrival and departure, how long the exit delay runs, and who to call if it sounds accidentally. The code itself travels privately, sent directly to the sitter's phone shortly before the trip, in a message thread between the two of you — never on the household instruction sheet, never pinned to the fridge, and never in a chat that includes other people.
List the systems the sitter does need — heating controls if the weather demands it, the stopcock location in case of a leak, the fuse box — and just as clearly the ones outside the job: offices, safes, garages with tools, and any room whose door stays shut. Changing a guest code after the trip, or retiring a shared code and issuing a fresh one, closes the loop calmly; make it part of the return routine alongside collecting keys.
Layer Three: The Pet Handover Stays Separate
Home access and pet care are different permissions and should arrive by different channels. The sitter's feeding times, litter routine, vet details, and your contact order belong in the pet handover, where they can be updated without reprinting door instructions. Keeping them separate also means a future sitter can receive pet details without ever holding this trip's entry information, and a neighbour who holds a spare key never automatically holds your cat's medical notes.
Run one rehearsal if the sitter is new: watch them unlock, disarm, and lock up once while you are still home, correcting quirks in person rather than by midnight phone call. Then leave, and let the layered system do its work. Owners formalise that separation neatly when the pet side travels as a KinsLe Care Pass, issued for set dates and expiring when the trip ends.