Become part of my little cat rescue while discovering Tirana, Albania

Informationen

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  Beschreibung

  Hi! I'm Melissa. I'm originally from the US and now live in Tirana Albania. I was traveling and working online for 6 years and in June 2025, me and my travel cat Milagros moved to Tirana. Within days of settling into our short term rental, I found a pregnant cat living in my garden, I started to feed her, and other cats started showing up for food. As time went on, I ended up housing up to 12 cats at a time, working to feed, vaccinate, sterilize and find them homes.
  
  I decided that instead of moving on from Albania, I would stay here, and help the cats. So now, I have 9 cats in my house, and am working the process of feeding, vaccinating, sterilizing and hopefully finding some of them forever homes.
  
  It's my dream to open a scalable cat shelter to help the animals here, but for now I'm a one woman operation with a youtube channel that funds my rescue efforts and an open door policy to any feline friend who shows up on my doorstep :)

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  Arten von Hilfe und Lernmöglichkeiten

  Betreuung von Tieren

  Hausarbeiten
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  Interessengebiete

  

  Haustiere

  

  Selbstentwicklung

  

  Karitative Arbeiten

  

  Tiere

  

  Yoga / Wellness

  

  Natur

  

  Fitness
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  Kultureller Austausch und Lernmöglichkeiten

  I live in an Albanian neighborhood so you'll get a direct look at how regular people here live. Most of the shops around are local, markets, corner shops, meat market, bakery etc. I live on the first floor of an Albanian family's home as well.

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  Arbeit

  I'm looking for someone to come live in my house with me for 6 weeks(December 10ish - January 18ish) and help care for the cats while my mom visits from the US. My mom is allergic to cats so this causes a pretty big logistics issue in that she can't be in my home without us having to visit a hospital lol.
  
  So what I'm looking for is help with the following
  
  1. Keep the cats daily schedule going - They are indoor outdoor kitties and I'm home most of the day. So really just be around to keep an eye on them (sometimes they get stuck outside of a gate, or they're fighting or want to cuddle or play etc)
  2. Help feeding them/prepping their food - I cook their food for them and usually prepare it every other day. So help with boiling chickens, mix in mineral powder and portion their food into small containers.
  3. Basic cat stuff - cleaning litter boxes, washing their dishes, vacuuming around the litter boxes that sort of thing.
  4. Call them in at night - If I'm out with my mom at night, just call them in for the night (they'll do anything for churu, it's pretty easy)
  5. Stay with them while my mom and I are in Italy December 22-28. I'm cool if you want to travel around a day or so otherwise, but those dates I need you to stay here.
  
  I will be living here while you're here so a lot of these tasks I'll help with as well. I'm just looking for backup and some relief so I can prioritize my mom instead of the cats.
  
  Here's who I think the right person is
  1. Someone who LOVES cats and deeply understands their care and connection. My home is as much their home as it is mine. They are on the counters, in the beds, they come in with muddy paws after I JUST mopped the floor. Someone who can love the cats when they're not just cute and cuddly, ya know?
  2. Someone looking to chill a bit and feel at home. I live in a very quiet country community outside of the city of Tirana. It's only 20 minutes to the city center but for the most part, this is a very quiet and calm community. If you're looking to be in the center of the action, this isn't in, but if you're looking to relax, this is the place.
  3. Absolute bonus points if you're interested in creating content. I have a moderately successful youtube channel that I've been abandoning because of work, so if you're interested in helping edit or film content that would be great. If not, also totally fine too.
  
  Time Off
  Feel free to take two days off totally from the kitties per week. I prefer this to happen mid week, but am flexible as I will be requiring full time assistance from Dec 22-28. We can work the exact scheduling out.

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  Gesprochene Sprachen

  Englisch: Fließend
  Spanisch: Gute Kenntnisse
  Albanian: Grundkenntnisse

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  Unterkunft

  The second bedroom in my house has a single bed, a nice desk and a large closet. The room is quiet, comfortable and gets great morning light. You can have some kitties sleep with you or close your door at night, up to you. If you work online, the wifi in the room is fast and you can close the door and have your own space. You have full access to my house, we will share a bathroom, living room kitchen, front and back gardens. There are chickens and a duck in the back (and sometimes front garden ha) You'll have your own key so you can come and go as you want. For food, I'll provide breakfast, coffee, tea bread, fruit, just tell me what you like to eat in the morning and I'll provide it. I'll also give you space in the fridge so you can cook as well. The kitchen is fully stocked with cooking supplies and I'll be sure to have house basics (paper towels, toilet paper, dish soap cleaning supplies etc) on hand.
  
  Again I will be living here while you're here. I lived in hostels and colivings for 6 years so I'm really familiar with living in shared spaces. I do work online and take calls from my desk in the living room in the afternoon and evening. I will use my headphones though so you can be in the shared space as well. I want you to feel comfortable in the space.

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  Was noch ...

  Transportation:
  If you want to check on a map, I live in Sauk, Tirana, Albania. There is a bus stop that runs every 30 minutes to the city around 3 minutes walking and a bus that runs every 15 minutes to the city 10 minutes walking. The bus costs 40 lek (50 cents-ish) and is super safe. There is also a taxi app called Patoko you can use as well, it's like Albanian Uber.
  
  House Rules/Specifics
  Nothing specific really, I live a pretty quiet and peaceful life, so if you're coming here to party this isn't the place.
  You can smoke outside, I don't smoke but everyone in Albania does so please just do so outside
  Clean up after yourself, I'm not super crazy on cleaning but I try to keep things relatively clean. Basically if you lived in shared spaces before and didn't have problems we'll be fine.
  
  I know this isn't a standard workaway job, so quantifying hours is difficult but like I said before, I'm looking for backup for the kitties. Many days I'll just do their tasks but I just want someone around to help so I can spend as much quality time with my mom as possible. But then from the 22-28 of December, to be here full time while I travel to Italy with my mom for the holidays.
  
  If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!

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  Etwas mehr Information

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    Internet Zugang

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    Eingeschränkter Internet Zugang

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    Wir besitzen Tiere

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    Wir sind Raucher

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    Familien möglich

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  Kann Digital Nomads unterbringen

  As a long time digital nomad myself, I can say this house is pretty good to work from. You'll have a desk and my old desk chair in your room, wifi runs about 30 down/5 up with a ping rate of 10 so it's VERY consistent but not the fastest. If you work with large files you might struggle to share files quickly. I am on zoom and google meets calls for hours a day with very little issues. Sometimes there are power outages / wifi outages, I use a hotspot on my phone and have a backup phone as well so someone else could use it to tether. There's a few cafes nearby (15 min walk) that have good connection too if my wifi is down.

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  Kapazität - wie viele Workawayer maximal

  eine(n)

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  Meine Tiere/Haustiere

  

  Polka

  Polka is one of Dottie's kittens and is quite shy. She's firmly against humans in less it's time for chicken or churu but I can tell she's getting more curious by the day.

  

  Dipper

  Dipper is one of Dottie's kittens and is SILLY personified. He's not quite sure about humans yet but he's coming around thanks to churu and chicken. He loves to play and run around the garden. He's a mama's boy to the max and always dressed fancy as is the custom for tuxies.

  

  Dottie

  Mama Dottie and her kittens are a new addition to the house. Dottie came to eat early in the year, then disappeared for months. Late in the summer she showed up with 2 kittens, living in the trees on the outside of the garden. I continued to offer her and her kittens food and slowly but surely they moved closer to the house, then eventually inside. She's such a sweet girl and an excellent mama to Dipper and Polka. She's settling in nicely and I'm hoping to see more of her personality unfold over time

  

  Cinnamon (4 Monaten)

  Cinnamon aka Minnie was brought inside just 2 months ago after I found him screaming for help on my street. He had been away from his mom for a bit, and was a little beat up. He took some medicine and cleaned up nicely, and is a great addition to our home. He loves people, to play with his toys and puts in a hard shift at the biscuit factory every night!

  

  Willow (3 Monaten)

  willow came into our home over the summer after i saw a man kicking him at a petrol station. He is the sweetest boy who loves people, animals, playing with his toys and is the #1 purr machine in the whole house.

  

  Astro (1 Jahr)

  Astro aka puffs is also one of the kittens of my first pregnant stray cat. He's my outside boy, the number one mouse hunter in the whole house and a chatter box. He comes in to eat and when it's raining but otherwise he's always keeping us safe and keeping the house "critter" free.

  

  Luna (1 Jahr)

  Luna aka Noodle is one of the kittens from my first pregnant stray cat. He's a sweet, sensitive, scaredy cat who sleeps directly on my face every night. He warms up over time and is a loyal happy boy.

  

  Albie (1 Jahr)

  Albie aka bee aka the mayor of kittenville came into my life screaming in the middle of the night on July 4th. I chased him around the garden for 18 hours before bringing him inside. He's the sweetest silly boy on the planet, friendly to everyone, and is known to go down the street and collect pats and sausages from the Albanian grandmas.

  

  Milagros (3 Jahren)

  Milagros "Mila" is the queen of my life. I found her when she was just 10 days old in a box on a kitchen table of a coliving in San Cristobal de las Casas Mexico. I bottle fed her, travel trained her and took her to 6 countries. She has many adoring internet fans and was featured on the Dodo!

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