I’m fortunate enough to have found a sitter. I’m leaving at 5:00am, so sitter is arriving the day before. On our initial call he planned to arrive in the afternoon so I can show him the pet’s routine before I leave the following morning. Now a few days before the sit it randomly came up that he made other plans for that day before, so he’s arriving at 10:00pm instead which will be too late to show him any pet stuff. If the topic hadn’t come up, it didn’t sound like he would’ve ever mentioned this schedule change.
Pet care. How complicated is it? We’ve come across pet care of wildly different complexities. On occasion, pet parents have left property before we arrive.
Handover tasks. Are there highly involved other responsibilities - say numerous plants?
Welcome Guide. How well are pet and property care matters explained in the WG?
Communication. Not great that housesitter did not mention change in arrival plan.
Action step. If you’re concerned then suggest communicate with housesitter. If you think necessary then schedule a brief call to complete handover tasks.
If I were the sitter, I would want a video call (Facetime, WhatsApp, etc) that I could do on my phone, and the owner on their phone, so that the owner could walk around their home and show me things, explain important tasks and quirks. A thorough Welcome Guide is paramount, too.
Keep everything friendly, but message him to let him know you would like him to arrive by 8pm as you’ll be having an early night with getting an early morning flight, and that is why it was great when he’d said he would originally arrive on the afternoon.
As for his mindset? He may have just forgot given it was discussed in your initial call, rather than it being written in your messages back and forth. I know for myself, if I don’t write it down or save it in the notes on my phone, I’d forget, because of all the different pet sits we end up doing.
Personally I think a 10pm arrival is very inconsiderate. I would definitely be in bed by then if I had a 5am departure the next day.
It is all rather late in the day to start negotiating, I hope all goes well.
This has happened to me before with 2 sitters, unfortunately. At least this sitter is technically still showing up the on the correct day as in both my cases they showed up a day later than agreed. As a HO we have to be flexible and stay on our toes, as situations can change at the last minute.
So first, while definitely annoying to arrive so late when you have an early flight, it does still give you some time to cover the essentials in person. Assuming you’ve got a good welcome guide, the only other thing I would do is make sure you have some kind of connectivity in your flight for questions.
Otherwise, enjoy your holiday. In your review definitely mention that the sitter changed the arrival time to a very inconvenient one for you.
As for the sitters mindset, who knows? As they said they probably found something they wanted to see prior to the sit. Better they do that and get it out of the way, vs arriving at the sit on time and leaving for pet for a longer than desired period to do whatever it was. So, try and look at the silver linings
First of all he is going against what he agreed to and that’s not right in my opinion. I can understand if he feels uncomfortable being with you the entire day and part of the next day till he takes over especially if he doesn’t have a car. BUT, he should have discussed that with you before he has you over a barrel so to speak. He knows you will not cancel him this late in the game. You may just want to say at this point, 10 pm is late for me, can you either arrive at 6 pm and you can have dinner with us or better yet, take him out to dinner after you show him around. If he is set on arriving late just do Zoom with him and show him around. When I meet with hosts to go over things it never takes more than 30 minutes. You can always mention in the review that he arrived hours later than our original agreed upon time leaving me a little nervous.
I can understand why you’re feeling a little uneasy about this, particularly with a 5am departure. I’d approach it in six steps:
Don’t speculate about the sitter’s mindset. There may be an innocent explanation, and trying to work out why he did it won’t resolve the immediate problem.
Be clear about the impact. Explain that 10pm is difficult because you have a 5am departure and need to be winding down well before then.
Suggest a specific alternative. Rather than simply asking him to come earlier, ask whether he can arrive around 6–7pm.
If 10pm is unavoidable, have a Plan B. Do a video call beforehand, use the Welcome Guide, and cover only the genuinely important things in person.
Keep it calm and friendly. This is probably not the time to turn it into a major issue or threaten cancellation unless there are other concerns.
Assess it afterwards. If everything goes smoothly, perhaps let it go. If the unexplained change caused unnecessary stress, it would be reasonable to mention the late change factually in the review.
The main thing is to get the handover sorted so you can leave feeling comfortable about your pets, rather than spending your last evening worrying about it.
This is certainly frustrating & a stressor you could have done without…not a good start on their part, although perhaps a learning experience to check in with sitters re:confirming arrival/departure times at least a week ahead of time — and in writing.
My personal concern here is their lack of communication & reliability. The sitter’s failure on those two items may or may not be an indicator/precursor to other issues & unfortunately you’re going to have to go with your gut on that at this stage.
From a practical standpoint, a couple questions:
What kind of pet is it? Cats vs dogs vs horses etc makes this a bigger or smaller deal. (I personally think it’s important for dogs to see me welcomed by & interacting with the host prior to them leaving, as it eases stress.)
Are there any special care instructions that can’t be easily & clearly documented in the WG?
What are your backup plans, & are they solid? If you try & push this issue with the sitter & it blows up, you stand the chance of a cancelation by one or the other party.
If you do decide to try to negotiate a more reasonable arrival, I suggest doing it in real time via either a call or video chat. Try not to seem too annoyed, but appeal to their reason & logic. Perhaps something along the lines of:
“Hey there; I’m not really sure how we got our lines crossed, but I have a 5am departure & was really counting on being able to introduce you to [pets] & go over things ahead of time as we’d discussed previously. Ten is pretty late for me to have to stay up to let you in & get you settled; is there some way you can adapt your schedule to arrive earlier…say 7ish? I’d really appreciate it; it would significantly ease the stress of my departure if I could get you comfortably settled in before I need to get to bed in preparation for such an early start.”
Just be prepared that depending upon whatever plans they made, they may not be able or willing to accommodate you this close to your departure, or may even suggest arriving the next day after your departure — so you should know how you’ll handle that if it happens.
10pm just feels rude. You are not a hotel open to receive guests at all hours. This is supposed to be a MUTUAL exchange. I would let him know that’s really a bit late and re negotiate a more suitable time, like 8pm.
They will at least be there when you leave. That’s a good thing. If you don’t think your welcome guide is sufficient and you can’t arrange a video chat, then I suggest you make a video and send it to them. You can show them anything you believe is important and they can reference the video whenever they need to, if necessary.
Is this sitter experienced with THS reviews @AllTheFerretsDied so that you feel confident he will be responsible and look after your pets and home? 10pm arrival where an earlier time had been agreed shows a lack of concern in relation to a handover. There’s a streak in me that would say to him where he is unable to arrive until 10pm by which time you will want to be going to bed, that you’ll do the handover at 4am so he has to be inconvenienced! I do hope all works out well for you.
I appreciate everyone’s insight. As SeniorSitter said, I’m in no position to make any demands two days before the sitter arrives.
My welcome guide is a rough guideline and my full instructions were planned for in-person. I think the biggest takeaway from everyone’s responses is that I need to make the welcome guide a fully-functional set of instructions on its own in case I don’t have the opportunity to talk to a sitter in the future.
I’ll post an update after this sit in case there’s any helpful info people here can use for the future.
Even though I think you need to ask him to arrive much earlier, there are loads of sits where I and other sitters arrive and depart without ever seeing the owners.
Unless you’ve got a large place and/or land the Welcome Guide is the best place for all your info. Cover things like where the mop/vacuum is, and where the pet food/leash/litter/poop bags etc are kept. It’s for all the things that never ever change, like your vets and emergency contact numbers, those things don’t change very often.
Then on a piece of paper you can write the qty of pet food, walks, medication, bin days - because those things can change from one year to the next.
That way, you never have to alter your Welcome Guide very often. It’s ready for the next sitter each time, so all you have to focus on is the contents of that one bit of paper, so there’s way less to think of.
I think it is peace of mind putting your eyes on the person who will be staying at your house. I don’t think it’s all about showing them around. I would need that comfort as well if I was leaving my home and pets in someone else’s care.
