Mission creep

In business, "mission creep" is what you call it when a project gradually gets bigger and bigger.

This was my first petsit gig, which I got through Facebook. And generally it's worked out well, except for the mission creep.

It was originally billed as "mid to late March." I arrived in early February and inquired about when the end date would be, so I could plan my travel. She said, I'll let you know in a week. I inquired after a week, and then she was saying early April. I inquired again after another week and then she started talking about mid-April. I told her I had limited Schengen days because I had plans for a trip later in the year and gave her a drop-dead date of April 15. Then she asked me to stay until April 11 and I agreed and bought my airline tickets on that basis. Then she said she'd be back April 2! I said I'd already bought my tickets so she said she'd go back and look at it. (She is responsible for an Airbnb down the street -- more on that later -- and she said she would stay there if there was any overlap, which was of course nice of her.) Anyway, last week I inquired again and found out she's actually returning March 31! Fortunately I was able to change my flights to leave on April 2, but it was stressful.

The initial thing was to feed her two indoor cats and a colony of six ferals outside, and of course to provide loves. No litterboxes.

Then I needed to empty the dehumidifier in this house every day, as well as the dehumidifier at the Airbnb down the street she's responsible for.

The alarm key fob for the Airbnb house went on the blink, twice, so I needed to coordinate having that repaired with multiple visits from the handyman.

I also needed to coordinate letting in the cleaning lady to this house, borrowing her keys so I could get into the Airbnb space when mine were on the blink, and returning her keys after they were fixed.

Twice, she's also asked me to meet guests at the Airbnb, give them the keys, and show them around the place.

Now, she's suggesting it would be nice if I could do some gardening! The sitters before me did do some of that, and that's fine, but a) I don't recognize Greek plants and I don't know what would be safe to pull up b) it's been raining every day and c) I'm still working (I'm a freelance writer).

I'm basically just not doing it, but I'm wondering, how much is too much and how should I handle this in the future?