That happened to me also. It does hurt. Future HO felt it is more about her than me.
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I had my first sit back in April and when completing the form in the first section I mistakenly hit three stars instead of five for ‘overall’ the rest of the sections were five. I was mortified and contacted the sitter and THS and they changed it for me.
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Agreed, @Di33, that can happen but that doesn’t apply here.
Really?? That’s your comment? It’s called a bit of fun and has become our calling card on the forum. #chillyourbootsfelix
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@fyfie I am truly sorry to read that poor review. As others have said, you are a most experienced sitter with excellent reviews. Future HOs will be able to discern this. Take your time composing your response as there’s no deadline. 
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@Cuttlefish, don’t you dare change a bit!
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Rating a sitter on how the pet is acting on the HO’s return is just plain wrong. "Reggie is a very nervous cat ". Well maybe he is nervous because of your return 
The pet probably had the best catcation ever and is just missing the sitter. We are on a 1 month pet sit right now and the supposedly nervous cat is chilling in my lap and enjoying peace and quiet. The HO’s who are a young family with a toddler and a dog are a busy, boisterous household. On their return and our departure I do expect the cat to be nervous, which is totally understandable and perfectly normal . She gets bullied by the toddler and the dog everyday.
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If I received a review that said “ full access to the house was not followed. ” I would query how the home owner knew this and question if they had internal cameras which are not permitted on THS .
I would also review negatively a homeowner who returned home early ( unless there were extenuating circumstances)
If a home owner has concerns that an item in the property had been damaged I would expect them to raise this with me privately first so that I could address this - rather than not mention it until a they published a review.
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If it was posted, make sure to reply to it. We are owners but if you had recent good reviews, we would not be bothered by a 2 star review. Not at all. You can’t please everyone and I would assume the owners were impossible to please.
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Did they not communicate with you throughout your sit?
For 2 stars, I think it could and should’ve been addressed during the sit. If they didn’t mention anything and didn’t even give a chance at resolution and you had no clue that there was anything even wrong, I’d find to be retaliation.
We recently got our first 4 star and we believe it was done in bad faith as we were honest about every thing in our stay and attempted to accommodate every single thing for the sitter except 1 non negotiable that the sitter was 100% aware of when they applied.
We spoke privately and they still dinged us even though all the boxes checked out. Sometimes, you can’t please everybody. However, if you think it’s vindictive- involve THS.
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It’s never easy to be criticised but you will soon know their reasoning. If the other 39 of your reviews are positive then there is nothing to worry over. One has to remember that people are all so varied in their level of expectation. I did one sit and had to clean the place immediately especially the toilet. I could not believe a woman would live so dirty but I had to remind myself that she was obviously different then me.
Look at the other 39 and learn from the silly 1. Best to you
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Hi to all
I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughts and support it is much appreciated. 
I have nearly finished my reply and I think (and hope) I have kept it neutral. I am wondering if someone who has read the review would be happy to give it the once over (via PM) before I send it.
best friendly pet wishes to all
F.
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@fyfie I have read the review (and yours for them) and would be happy to comment on your response. So you are welcome to PM me 
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A few years back, one of our HOs gave us a 1-star review in error. After some back & forth, the HO was able to get THS to change it to 5-star.
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After well over 100 sits I had someone deduct a star for “garden” this past week (not on THS - I don’t know if that’s even a category on THS). It was a six day sit, it rained 50% of the time, I watered the plants under cover and resuscitated the inside cat grass, I fished limes out of the pond, picked up debris from trees on the driveway, brought in and folded the owner’s laundry which they left outside. Feedback was positive, no mention of garden … that dull thud sound is me banging my head against a wall. I’ve spent the past week debating whether I should respond, whether I should ask what exactly lost me a star in the “garden” category, whether I should just ignore … thud thud thud
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@B1anca
You could ask the question privately then decide to respond or not.
best wishes
F.
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If it helps, we just had a nightmare sit (for which we gave a glowing review) where we were given 1* for cleanliness which we thought was overly harsh. We were so shocked and upset as everything had seemed fine before that. We were v worried that HOs would give us a wide berth so we addressed it openly and honestly in our next application and said that we were happy to answer any of their questions, and we’ve now got our next sit confirmed for July:smiling_face:. So all is not lost! I’m sure you’ll be fine 
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@Jigsaw70 why did you give ‘a glowing review’ for a nightmare sit? Or do you regard it as a nightmare sit only because you got 1* for cleanliness? Were there any warning signs in these HOs attitude to you that hinted they might be mean in their review? I’m just curious. I know in the past we were occasionally too generous in our reviews because of fear of retaliation. But now with blind reviews there really is no reason not to be honest as it cannot influence the other partys review. They can only respond to it if they wish. But I know, from experience, old habits die hard. 
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