Hi,
I did a house sit over Christmas down south in Western Australia. It was a week of pleasant times looking after 2 lovely cats in a sea side country town and it gave me the opportunity to re-explore the area I hadn’t seen for decades.
At the end I was given a terrible review by an owner and it hurts!
She is obviously a horrible woman and tho I enjoyed my stay, the after taste of her review is sullying.
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I’m sure you realise by now, but you have included the bulk of your message in the title, so it’s not possible to read much! Please edit the message, with a short title, and the main content in the message box. Hopefully people here can offer some support!
Could there be any truth to the review, and it’s not all about the host being a horrible woman? Sometimes we have a bit of self denial. I just got docked a star on cleanliness on an otherwise 5 star review and that annoyed me but I don’t disagree with the host.
Can you share if she just gave you a low score or did she tell you in the review why she did that? Two cats seems like an easy sit. Was this your first sit or hers? Some hosts are unreasonable and some have valid reasons. Can you share what she said. Let me tell you about an unreasonable host I observed on this platform. I applied for a sit and then withdrew after rereading her profile for the 2nd time and getting a negative feeling about something. Words are important. She was a first time host and went back later to read the review of her first sitter. Sitter gave her 5 stars. This was also the sitters first time using the platform. Sitter said in her review how the pets loved her and she set the bar high for the next sitter. I would never say anything like that but O.K, you be you. I then went to see what the PP said. She gave her 3 stars stating she was high maintenance because she had packages delivered to the house and they arrived after she left and PP had to get them to her. Sitter shouldn’t have packages delivered on a sit under a week stay which this was but giving her 3 stars for that was unreasonable. I wonder if it would turn off other sitters from applying. It would me.
Sorry you are so upset about your review. Are you a “new to THS” sitter? Have you looked at the homeowners previous reviews of previous sitters? It is possible that it was only “pleasant times” in a one-sided way? Can you help us understand what the specific issues were from the homeowner perspective? The THS platform is definitely a two way street, each side has to benefit from a good sitter who delivers what the Homeowner sets as expectations. Was the homeowner’s listing too vague or incorrect? Maybe the Homeowner expectations were not clearly stated and therefore you could not possibly have met them and therefore their rating indeed uncalled for? Please elaborate on the specifics of it all.
So your review was terrible. That definitely sucks BUT you have an opportunity to respond. A well crafted response can entirely blow an unfair review out of the water. You have 1 and only 1 chance to respond. There is no time limit. Take your time to cool down, contemplate and respond. I’m sure you’ll be fine.
This is exactly what I left 5 stars for a 3 star sitter who had 15 prior glowing 5 star reviews. Sitters would look at my review compared to the sitter’s stellar record and with my limited history on the site, I would be seen as the nitpicky unreasonable host.