So if I understand correctly, you looked at previous reviews to enable you to make an informed decision about whether to apply or not.
Perhaps if the other reviews had been more accurate and addressed the issues you would not have gone ahead.
We owe it to ourselves and each other to score and review according to what we experience, good and bad.
She only had one previous review and that was from a friend in the village who was there for a weekend to apparently check if the dogs would be ok.
Sounds like the end of this sit can’t come quickly enough for you. As far as a review goes, start with any positives and keep it brief about the cleanliness. I’d write ‘it was most disappointing to find the home had a number of cleanliness issues’ As a sitter, I’d take that as a red flag.
Nope. Early 50’ and perfectly able bodied, where as im 61 with a 6mth old hip replacement 
Back in 2019, reviews were different. At that time, they were not “blind,” and also, there were no ratings for individual categories (sitter reviewing an owner).
Currently, reviews are blind, and there are 5 categories plus an overall star rating.
When you write your review, you might be able to give them 5 stars on some of the categories, but overall, it sounds like a 2 star sit (smokers in a dirty house), and obviously, cleanliness is a 1-2 stars.
If you simply mention “the owners smoke cigarettes” and “the home was not clean on arrival,” that would be enough to put off most sitters.
I am a HO and I paid £100 for our range cooker to be cleaned before the sitter arrived. No way was it anything like that though. So disgusting.
Thank you all for your kind advice and support. It is a shame we cannot upload photos on the review as a picture really does paint a thousand words.
We gave a kind review with a low score for cleanliness to protect future sisters-and got slammed.
(photos of home removed by Forum team as per Community Guidelines)
Which means you received a bad review or the host posted a nastygram in response to your review?