I think you need to let go of the possibility of hidden cameras. Letting the house get messy isn’t a bad thing as long as it’s clean and neat when the HOs return.
You may never know exactly what their real issue was. It might be their personalities. Maybe on returning their reflection was you contacted them too much, or not enough, or felt something else wasn’t handled as they thought. You can make yourselves crazy wondering. Hopefully, they will provide some insight but, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Every sit is a chance to learn. You will make adjustments in questions you ask for prospective sits. You will learn what red or yellow flags to look for. I know I’ve learned to trust my gut more. Think back over your interactions with these people and see if there’s anything that made you uneasy in some way that you brushed aside at the time. It’s not about finding fault but about learning.
And, write a concise and unemotional response to their review. The members here are fantastic with helping write these!
I want to give you props, @FB2025 for the self-reflection, and also 100% agree with @Kelitino!
Still, I myself am an “over-thinker” so I can sympathize and wanted to share some thoughts in case they are helpful. My main takeaway from your OP was that you did not do a “1 star” job considering the home and pets were well-taken care of in the end. However, all you can do at this point is likely learn from the experience and even use it in your upcoming sits. For example, you can make sure the HO have outlined what to do in case of an emergency (i.e. plumbing or wifi outage) and without being nosey, ask if they’re available to get ahold of for random questions, or if they prefer you figure it out.
As a HO, I have let my sitters know, I’m only out of town for business usually and not vacation, and 100% do not mind them contacting me for random curious questions, as you would a friend you’re sitting for. For example, (“Hey, do you have mustard?” or “the sheets are irritating our skin. Is there an extra set anywhere?” etc.)
But if HO are on vacation or out of range, they may specify, please do your best to figure these things out without involving us.
Anyways, Using this OP to discuss with upcoming sits may be a nice option since if I heard this, I’d understand the situation rather than be paranoid.
Thanks so much Kelitino - they’ve ignored our WhatsApps so it’s definitely making us a little crazy thinking about everything we might have done.
Just fingers crossed our future hosts won’t get too freaked out by the 1 star, and we can just move in from this.
I’m also going to do little things like have a notebook and write absolutely everything down that they say when we have our introduction and tour of the house, rather than remember it.
Thanks Mendez320 - yes we will just try and move on from this now. Just drafting up some replies to their online review, and to one of our future sits to let them know. Only fair they know our review and have a chance to change their minds. Otherwise they might really our review during their holiday or smthg and totally freak out about us, and it might ruin their time away.
That’s really nice of you and it’s what I would have done.
In fact that’s what I intended to do in case I got a bad review from a difficult owner. Although I did everything right I was prepared to get a bad review. His last review proved he was not a good match for me but I only read it a couple of days before the sit started. I didn’t want to let him down last minute so I did the sit but did not start with the best spirit and thought I would not want others to go through that situation.
In the end, he didn’t write a review so there’s no cause for concern for future sits.
Does anyone know how to read reviews that hosts have left for their past sitters? This might help us spot red flags - e.g. if they’re giving a lot of low ratings, they might be unlucky with sitters, but they might also be very difficult and hard to please.
What bugged me most was how lovely our hosts were in person, so we had no idea they weren’t happy with us, and we feel a bit duped. But they must also feel duped by us! ho humm
You click on sitters and reviews on the host profile @FB2025 and then on the sitters profile pic and it shows you the review from the other side too. #goodhomework
You seem like a much better person than me I’d not be so understanding and would be livid at their action’s towards you.
They seem like horrid people and you come across as a people pleaser. In this dynamic they will always take advantage of you.
Although the correct advice is to rise above it, we got a bad review once and we ripped into them in the response - much more eloquently than they had been in their review. The next sit I did, they specifically mentioned how they could see how diligent and hardworking we were and that the last owner was clearly an a-hole.
If they don’t remove the review I suggest responding to it with an unemotional yet detailed description of everything you did to make this sit work and how these things happened outside your control.
If I was looking for a house to sit and I saw they’d given an unreasonable one star to other sitters there’s no way I’d apply. This will lose them good sitters because good experienced sitters always read their reviews they’ve given others.
Because it might be why they’re not giving us more information about something we did that they didn’t like. Because they couldn’t say how they know. For example they might have seen us let the kitchen get very messy, or my mum stay an extra night.
One final bit of support until we leave this thread alone - thanks so much for the help here. Just wondered if someone could offer some feedback to our response to their review. We weren’t sure if we’ve gone into too much detail, and been too defensive:
We are devastated and confused by this review. We have asked twice and have had no response or feedback from them, which is really unsettling for us.
We thoroughly enjoyed looking after their black lab , Bengal, and their chickens. We took their dog on some epic walks into the moors and spent time understanding the pecking order in the coop to try and help one of the chickens who was being bullied. They were also wonderful hosts- welcoming, friendly and generous. We had dinner together when they returned. We were told that we had done a wonderful job, and we left the house cleaner than it was when we arrived. There were no suggestions that they weren’t happy with anything.
Several things did go wrong during our stay; on day 3, a dripping leak in one of the radiator valves in a room we didn’t use caused some plaster damage in the floor below, and there were some electrical problems which caused the RCD to trip when certain configurations of lights were turned on. We managed both these situations as best we could. We communicated with our hosts throughout and sorted out the lights issue ourselves with a few hours of investigative work. We also broke one of their garden tools when digging for Burdock roots, but we replaced it before they returned.
If we were future hosts, we would be imagining all the awful things that we might have done to get one star and for the owners not to give any explanation. If this review hasn’t completely turned you against us, please do take a look at our Airbnb reviews and LinkedIn Profiles as well as the other reviews and references on this site before making a decision
All the best
Well done @FB2025. I am assuming where you have used “them” in the second sentence for privacy here on the forum, that you will use their proper names in your response so it reads more personal.
It’s great, have re-ordered it slightly for you as think it is good for future hosts to see that they were 100% happy on their return right at the start of your response. It speaks volumes about you guys telling the truth. #truthwins
We are devastated and confused by this review as they were wonderful hosts - welcoming, friendly & generous. We had dinner together when they returned & we were told that we had done a wonderful job & that the house was cleaner than when we arrived. There were no suggestions that they weren’t happy with anything.
We have asked twice for feedback since this review & heard nothing back which is very unsettling.
We thoroughly enjoyed looking after their black lab Bengal, and their chickens. We took their dog on some epic walks into the moors and spent time understanding the pecking order in the coop to try and help one of the chickens who was being bullied.
Several things did go wrong during our stay which we tackled to the best of our ability. On day 3, a dripping leak in one of the radiator valves in a room we didn’t use, caused some plaster damage in the floor below, and there were some electrical problems which caused the RCD to trip when certain configurations of lights were turned on. We communicated with our hosts throughout and sorted out the lights issue ourselves with a few hours of investigative work. We also broke a garden tool when digging for Burdock roots so we replaced it at our cost before they returned.
If we were future hosts, we would be imagining all the awful things that we might have done to get one star and for the owners not to give any explanation. If this review hasn’t completely turned you against us, please do take a look at our Airbnb reviews and LinkedIn Profiles as well as the other reviews and references on this site before making your decision.
This exactly. They behaved badly, and because they had cameras, they saw you being messy, or doing something they didn’t like. But they know they can’t complain, as it would incriminate themselves.
I had two sits where there were internal cameras they said were turned off. Although I try to be tidy, the kitchen and coffee table can get cluttered for a day or two, and I had a gut feeling with both that they had lied about the cameras not being switched on, because all of a sudden, their Whatsapp behaviour changed. They went from being chatty and friendly and sending photos of their vacation, to only responding if I asked an important question. One marked me down for not being self sufficient or tidy. But the house was pristine when they got home, so how did they know, if they didn’t have cameras?!
If you can’t change the review, I would respond by saying “I am very sorry you were not happy with us. I wish you had mentioned something to us sooner, so we could have resolved any issues.”
And leave it at that. Don’t mention the issues you had. I always look to see how people or companies respond to bad reviews. And if they appear mature and responsible, I am often able to ignore the bad review.
I like your response and Cuttlefish’s re-ordering of things. As HO, I read everything I can to get a full picture of a situation and would appreciate your message. They can’t say anything else now so I’d remove the part about the broken shovel and focus on what was wrong with their house. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been proactive about the radiator leak! They’d be looking at flood damage and maybe worse. They sound super shady, you sound like an awesome sitter. I’m sorry you have to deal with this.
Great!! Personally, I would also get rid of this negative language, which I think makes you sound a little defensive:
“devastated” & “If this review hasn’t completely turned you against us”
I also would get rid of this, since it gives some credibility to the HO:
“they were wonderful hosts” (maybe they seemed like wonderful hosts, but the clearly were not that wonderful, if they’re treating you like this)
The result would look like…
We are confused by this review as [it seemed like a wonderful sit with happy hosts]. We had dinner together with the hosts when they returned & we were told that we had done a wonderful job & that the house was cleaner than when we arrived. There were no suggestions that they weren’t happy with anything.
We have asked twice for feedback since this review & heard nothing back which is very unsettling.
We thoroughly enjoyed looking after their black lab Bengal and their chickens. We took their dog on some epic walks into the moors and spent time understanding the pecking order in the coop to try and help one of the chickens who was being bullied.
Several things did go wrong during our stay, which we tackled to the best of our ability. On day 3, a dripping leak in one of the radiator valves in a room we didn’t use caused plaster damage in the floor below, and there were some electrical problems which caused the RCD to trip when certain configurations of lights were turned on. We communicated with our hosts throughout and sorted out the lights issue ourselves with a few hours of investigative work. [We also broke a garden tool when digging for Burdock roots so we replaced it at our cost before they returned.]
If we were future hosts, we would be imagining all the awful things that we might have done to get one star and for the owners not to give any explanation. Please do take a look at our Airbnb reviews and LinkedIn Profiles as well as the other reviews and references on this site before making your decision.
Very good @one-eyed_scallywag. My only suggestion would be to swap out ‘we are confused by this review’ to ‘we are puzzled by this review’.
I know it is subtle but there is an impactful difference between the two words.
The sits you already have won’t look at reviews now.. I’d reply to that review live now , explain the things you did great and the things they did great AND the wrong things you thought they did so that other sitters can hear it. I don’t think it was a mistake and asking obviously mean people — well it’s how they get their kicks.. be very kind statiing all the lovely things you mentioned.. that communication must be off as they did not say anything was wrong.. that you pride yourself on being open and reliable, a pet lover etc etc
Sorry that’s too much groveling .. mean people are just that.. I feel she should state more of what she know she did right.. all the over and above things they did for the HO, throw it in their laps saying they did not communicate that anything was wrong..
100% do not reach out to the future sits. They won’t be looking back at reviews.. reply to the mean HO, with all the issues their home had, all the great things you did, that there was a camera In X room.. if it’s there it’s on and that is illegal.
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