N.W.T.ers share their most harrowing housesitting tales

A mischievous llama.A shaved poodle.A skeleton cat.

No, this isn't a list of characters from a long-forgotten Disney filmit's a snapshot ofhousesitting in the North!

CBC North's team behind The Trailbreaker has been gathering the Northwest Territories' most memorable housesitting tales from the funny, to the ugly, to the downright sad.

There's the couple from Fort Smith who looked after their friends' alpaca farm, and got so fed up with a troublesome llama named Pumpkin knocking his food trough over, that they took it upon themselves to reconstruct his feeding area.

Then, there's the family in Yellowknife whose housesitter got so homesick, he up and left. When the family returned, their cat Spook emerged from a snowbank as a "walking skeleton." She had been left out in the dead of winter for nearly three weeks.

Another housesitter forgot her dogsitting charge at Yellowknife's Folk on the Rocks site and returned to find Robbie the poodle covered in prickly burrs. When the owners came home, Robbie had been completely shaved.

Rosella Stoeztells the story:

0:01Rosella Stoez and the shaved dog

In Yellowknife, Rosella Stoez tells her housesitting tale of having to shave the dog she was petsitting. Part of the Trailbreaker special on housesitting.

But it's not all bad.

Diane Boudreau wished the kitchen in one of herhousesits had a better view, so the former architect sketched a design and left it on the owners' table. Two years later, they made the renovations and shereturned to see the kitchen she envisioned.

0:01Diane Boudreau on her housesitting vision

In Yellowknife, part of the Trailbreaker's special on housesitting. One artist had a vision for her housesit, that turned into a reality.

CBC North's digital team is also on the hunt for your housesitting tales of terror and triumph. Here's some of the best ones we've received:

'Felix is dead. I put him in the freezer.'

Submitted by S.,fromFort Smith:

I was a medical student house sitting for anRCMPcouple who had left town to have a baby.There wasaninside/outside cat (never a good idea in the North) and a dog.One night, I tried to call the cat to come in the house, but he just refused.

"You'll regret that!" I told him, thinking of the temperatures that were beginning to drop at night.In the middle of the night, I heard a strange noise, but I couldn't place it.

The next morning, the cat wasn't around.

That day I flew to a neighbouring community and returned late in the day.On my desk at work, I found a note from the next door neighbour:"S., bad news.Felix is dead.I put him in the freezer."

Hysterical does not begin to capture my reaction.I felt horrendous and responsible for the poor cat's death.

When I returned to the house, the neighbourhood kids were busy making grave markers and the dog was crying next to the deep freeze.

I had to call a woman who was past her due date and tell her that her beloved cat had died.I left out the part where the neighbour told me that it had been killed by a pack of dogs on the front lawn.

To this day, I will happily dog sit, but I have not, and will never, look after a cat again.

An unexpected return

Submitted by A., from Yellowknife:

A former neighbour was looking for a place to housesit, so I offered her my place while I was away.I left my flight information.

Anyway, it was the dead of winter.I came home after weeks away, jetlagged,exhausted, andwith a bad cold.I couldn't wait to crawl into bed.

The door was locked.I tried knocking, but there was no answer I found the spare key.

As I was unlocking the door, there was a naked man I'd never seen before opening it!I yelled: "who are you!!!???"And he yelled back: "well, Who are you!!!???" [editor's note: original punctuation from submission left intact].

I looked around andsaw that every towel, sheet anddishcloth was dirty anddiscarded all over the living room and every glass,cup and goblet I owned was strewn amid the mess.

The real housesitter came running down the stairs (also naked) andsaid: "oh!!! I thought you are due in at10 p.m., not10 a.m.we had a big henna painting party last night."

I just grabbed my skis, said I'd be back in a couple hours, andheaded out skiing.

When I returned, the place was spotless dishes, linen, everything gleaming. So all's well that ends well and we're still friends.

By the way, the then-strange man is now a well-known face in Yellowknife. So no names!

If you have a housesitting story you'd like to share, post a comment below, send a message to our Facebook page, or emailgarrett.hinchey@cbc.ca.