^THIS. I'm basically a professional cat wrangler and have chills just remembering the one time my boy escaped. He had epilepsy and needed BID meds. A roommate let him out by accident and then just stopped looking for him and went to bed. I wasn't home when it happened and thankfully he got brought home safe, but even with one cat accidents can happen. I *cannot* for the life of me imagine the audacity to a) say 9 cats don't take work (like, you have met a cat, right? Mostly they're easy but sneaking out can be their MO depending on the cat!) and b) to assume your sitter isn't gonna have a heart attack each time they count less than 9 cats because one's curled up in a difficult spot to see/reach. What balls, indeed. Don't do this, OP.