So I had a post today edited to remove the word “entitled” - maybe this will be too, but I think that the website could do a better job of setting and gauging expectations and facilitating that with homeowners and sitters alike to weed out or dampen people who have that attitude about a house sit that is essentially unpaid labor.
I’ll echo what other people here have said in that all of those gestures feel like a bit much for me personally. You did quite a bit of unpaid labor but then overcompensated in all these other areas, to then be disappointed when it was treated transactionally (not paying for the meal and being hyper critical).
It’s really hard to get a sense for culture and I do wish, again, that the website did a better job of vetting and establishing that - for instance I trust that people who travel frequently, live nomadically or communally or have experience with home exchange/couch surfing tend to be much less individualistic and demanding.
I’ve skipped over a lot in this topic and the issue happened a while ago so has probably been resolved, I also don’t know all the details, but a thought is, while canning their produce is such a giving gesture, if I were the HO, I would have liked you to ask me first. Maybe the HO don’t want all the jars, don’t have room, don’t want the fuel used that that requires.
I know you wanted it to be a surprise, but I’ve found telling the HO of something nice that I plan to do, pleases them. It also gives them the chance to give me feedback that might affect my plans.
Please make sure to leave an honest review about them. I can’t believe you picked them up from the airport late at night and went to lunch with them and they did not pay for the lunch? I guess I am just that person who would not want to house sit for people like that. So I would appreciate if someone mentioned it in the review about them.
I do think you went over the board with some things, but if that’s something that you like to do, nothing is wrong with that. What is wrong is for them to expect pet sitting, house sitting, house cleaning, picking up from the airport and then not even have decency to pay for lunch, then proceed to leave a 4 star review (I do wonder if they hit 4 stars on accident).
I am so very sorry to hear this, and I can completely sympathise. We had a similar experience last year. The house was filthy when we arrived (we had to clean the bathroom, fridges and dining table as well as make up our bed after driving for around 7 hours to get there. There were broken items we weren’t told about at first. . But we didn’t complain and let the house way cleaner and tidier than when we arrived. After we left the HO left a message on my phone (admitting stuff was broken before we got there), blocked me and wrote a horrible review and that we had broken the items. I was absolutely heart broken, cried for days about it and we left THS for nearly a year, it took a long time to get over it for me. But we’ve moved on. We KNOW we look after people’s homes and pets like they were our own, even better than, as there is so much trust placed. That’s the work I did and my advice would be to work on letting any of those negative feelings go and love yourself for all that you do and have done. Sending love