Summary
We are looking for someone to look after our apartment and pets in suburban Beijing for roughly the month of July. Ideally, I would like someone who will be spending a lot of time at home with the pets because they are used to having me at home most of the day as I work from home. Vegans/vegetarians would also be preferred because we are vegan and would rather not have nonvegan food being cooked in our kitchen if possible.
Responsibilities
We have a small dog who is very sweet and easygoing, as well as two rather feisty but loving and outgoing cats. They don't have any special needs except that the dog might need some ongoing treatment for a lump he has on his neck, which has currently been diagnosed as basically a large callus. He readily eats his pills if you put them inside a treat and otherwise he just needs a topical cream that is not difficult to apply. We also have a katydid that just needs to be fed carrots and other vegetables every couple of days. It lives in a small terrarium and makes a lovely chirping sound!
In addition, we have many potted plants in the house and outside on a large third-story rooftop terrace that will need watering and maybe some weeding and natural pest control (ie spraying aphids off with the hose and relocating caterpillars).
Other than that, I just need the sitter to keep things tidy and make sure the electricity doesn't go out because I have a lot of food in the freezer for my food business.
The apartment and neighborhood
The apartment is two stories with a living room/dining room, kitchen, and bathroom (toilet broken) downstairs and another bathroom as well as a bedroom and music studio upstairs. The whole apartment gets great natural light and has three air-conditioners.
The kitchen is small but has basically everything you could need - small dishwasher, small oven, stove, medium fridge and minifridge, microwave, blender, food processor, lots of dishes, utensils, and cookware. The clothes washer is also in the kitchen.
The living/dining room has a couch, chaise, chair, air-conditioner, flatscreen tv with no broadcast or cable hookup but with an HDMI cable for watching things from your computer or my laptop, which has an external hard drive with tons of movies and shows, a stereo system, wifi, coffee table, dining room table and chairs, piano, air purifier, water cooler, chest freezer, lines for hanging laundry to dry under the stairs, lots of fiction and nonfiction books, art supplies, and some board games. We also have some toys to use in the park across the street, like bocce ball, frisbee, juggling balls and pins, picnic blanket, baseball bat, and tennis balls, as well as three bikes.
The toilet in the downstairs bathroom is permanently broken but there is a functioning sink and garden hose. The terrace can be accessed from here through a window you can step out over the toilet. It is large and shared with a couple neighbors and overlooks a courtyard in the apartment complex on one side and a large park across the road on the other.
The upstairs bathroom has a Western-style toilet, sink, and shower, which is not in a stall but simply on one side of the room as is typical in China.
There is a large landing at the top of the stairs with an arm chair, rocking chair, and coffee table with a window looking over the terrace. This also where the litter box is, but it is covered and easy to clean with the pull of a lever. There is a wireless repeater/network extender here so you can get wifi upstairs too.
The bedroom has a large king- or queen-size bed with an air-conditioner, lamps, nightstands, wardrobe, dresser, and ironing board. The other upstairs room is a music studio.
In the apartment complex there are some small shops and restaurants. Right next to it is a large supermarket. Across the road is a large park, behind which is a wet market and more shops. A five- to ten-minute taxi ride or slightly longer bus ride can take you to Western grocery stores, restaurants, bars, malls, a lake (nice for walks but not for swimming), and the subway. On the subway, it is about 20 minutes to the edge of the really urban area and about an hour to the city center.
Please be aware
It's best not to leave the dog alone for more than 6-8 hours or so, and it's best not to leave him alone for that long too often. A few hours per day should be fine though. He also does bark some when he hears noises in the hallway but this is only occasionally.
The plants in the garden are just seedlings so they will need consistent watering while they are young if they are to survive. The table and chairs on the terrace must be collapsed when not in use as occasional strong winds could otherwise blow them away.
The cats are not declawed and can be pretty feisty so it's best if you have some experience reading cats' body language in order not to get scratched. They can get feisty with each other and the dog as well so you may need occasionally to break up a fight and put one cat in timeout and/or take care that they do not approach the dog, who is very small, in an unfriendly manner. They are als