As a housesitter, it isn’t your role to protect homeowners who choose not to treat you with the respect every sitter deserves. You are not their friend, their family, their employee and you owe them nothing, regardless of how “lovely” they are.
Honest reviews are important not only for your self esteem but for all sitters coming after you. Imagine if we gave every sit five stars, simply because the HO was nice, despite all the negatives attached to it.
Be honest and upfront, you won’t be seeing them again and you owe nobody anything apart from honesty. Harsh? Reality.
It SHOULD impact their ability to get future sitters, and that is entirely their fault. It shouldn’t become your problem. I would even mention in a review that the HOs acknowledged getting the pre-sit checklist from THS but laughed it off.
Please do leave an accurate review. I’ve had conversations with sitters who complained about bad sits but then turned around and gave a glowing review so the next person gets stuck and the cycle continues. Your instinct to be truthful and factual is spot-on.
But there’s the problem, we didnt open the fridge or the oven on arrival, or look at the hob. we didnt check our bathroom until we went to bed, after we’d shared an evening meal with the HOs. We didnt turn the overhead lights on so we could check the worktops or the tabletop. We couldnt see what was in the garden.
We carry a portable compressor fridge for our essentials so don’t transfer food to the house fridge immediately on arrival.
How many of you do a proper check on arrival, especially when a meal has been prepared? How difficult it would be, to refuse a sit after you’ve just shared a meal, and talked.
Don’t get me wrong, these issues will be mentioned in our review and we totally agree with responses posted on this. It took hours of work to turn things around and that’s really not acceptable.
This experience has just made me wonder how sitters can reasonably check facilities immediately on arrival and define a threshold for justifiably exiting that sit. When it happens in reality, it doesnt necessary follow a nice neat pathway and it does place the sitter in an awful predicament.
@Happypets, in those circumstances, you could give the hosts and THS notice that you won’t be staying and give them maybe a day to arrange alternative care for their pets. Your choice as a sitter, because the hosts did not live up to their end — you would not knowingly have agreed to sit a filthy home.
Everyone has differing standards for cleanliness, but what you described is disgusting. Personally, I would leave. Such hosts don’t deserve any sitters, as far as I’m concerned. Even if they don’t mind living in filth, they shouldn’t expect a sitter to, or any guests to.
The problem for the sitter is having a Plan B. Personally, I wouldn’t sit at all if I couldn’t afford a fallback, because I don’t want to leave myself trapped or stranded because of bad hosts. I would rather pay for a hotel or return home early than sit a filthy home for hosts who have no respect for their sitters.
Even now, in sending daily updates on the pets to the HO, I’m feeling angry. I think because i feel we’ve been disrespected, and conned. It’s changed the whole vibe of the sit, somehow.
We’ll care for the pets with love and attention - as we always do - and will maintain the home, but it does make you wonder about people, and i dont know how i read this one so wrong.
That’s exactly why I wouldn’t stay at such a sit — even after the sit, it would stick in my craw to have sat for such disrespectful people. To me, THS is voluntary, so why would I volunteer to go through with an experience that would leave me angry? Even if I unknowingly walked into such a sit, as soon as I discovered that, I would exercise my agency. But you can’t do that if you can’t afford a fallback. Personally, I’d rather eat travel costs and go home early or pay for a hotel. And I’d certainly write a factual review and warn off other sitters, because no host is automatically entitled to future sitters if they can’t offer a livable home. It doesn’t matter how “nice” they are. (To me, nice includes not shafting sitters.)
I cut hosts slack on cleanliness to a degree, because cleanliness is not one bar — we have different expectations. But filth is filth.
We can afford a plan B - and rather wish we’d taken that route - but we hadn’t anticipated this situation and our automatic response was to start cleaning, when we possibly should have just started thinking. I’m mad at myself for that, too!
We’ve now deep-cleaned the fridge, oven and hob, the worktops and the table. We’ve put all the stuff from the kitchen worktops into one area so we can leave a space clear and clean. We’ve scrubbed the bath and the bathroom and we’ve mopped the floors in those rooms. We’ve washed the bedlinen and hoovered the masses of cat hair and dust from under our bed. We can manage this (although we shouldnt have to, we’ve done it all now!). We won’t be cleaning any other rooms.
I can accept untidy, but not dirty. I could not have prepared or cooked food in this kitchen and would never, ever have put food in this fridge (if you saw the pics, you’d understand!).
We drove 5 hours to be here and arrived at dusk. It’s an old cottage with poor lighting. We just didnt realise how bad things were until after the HOs had left, the following day. I think we felt some responsibility for not immediately noticing, and that added to the ongoing commitment.
So, at what point could - and should - we have turned this around? What’s the cut off point for walking off a sit? What would you have done?
@Happypets I really feel your pain. I would be so disappointed too. We had one such sit and we felt trapped, cheated. It was a very long sit, aaargh. How long is your sit? Hopefully it’s a short one.
Each sitter uses their own standards and judgment, of course.
If it were me, as soon as I noticed that the sit was filthy and was disgusted, I’d have let the host and THS know that I wouldn’t stay. I’d suck it up for a night if needed to give the host time to arrange alternative care. As you said, you felt upset and conned. I’m not willing to extend such feelings by cleaning their disgusting home.
@Maggie8K
Well it won’t be happening again, that’s for sure!
@botvot
It’s a 13 night sit. The HOs have a late return so want us to stay until the following day, but we’ll be leaving as soon as they get back home.
@Happypets, unfortunately, many sitters have had at least one of these experiences and then they become more careful in screening hosts. Not that 100 percent accuracy is possible.
Some elements that work for me:
• Look for references to cleanliness in listings.
• Avoid sits where sitter reviews don’t specifically mention cleanliness of the home.
• Scrutinize photos.
Note: Some hosts are creepy and will mislead, like by posting photos that don’t actually reflect the state of the home you’d be sitting.
Personally, if I find that I’ve been misled (hasn’t happened yet), I’d report X to THS and make sure to factually include X in my review. To me, the better jobs that sitters do in warning off other sitters, the more likely terrible hosts will end up without sitters, effectively driving them off the platform. That would be better for everyone else.
Ive contacted Membership Services to make them aware of the situation, and provided photos. They’ve suggested we should reach out to the pet parents and let them know we want to leave the sit, and agree a date for alternative pet carers to take over.
We’re now deciding what to do. We obviously cannot apply for any other sits until we’re released from this one. And what if they cant find alternative pet care? What if they won’t release us? Despite everything, we dont want to ruin their holiday and we’ll put the pets first. This is a no-win situation, for sitters.
Im all for leaving, my O/H isn’t happy, but thinks we should just see it out, now we’ve tackled the main issues. There are 11 nights to go…
I’m sorry that you or anyone else faces such situations, not of your making. Of course, you and your OH must decide what works best for you both.
About whether they can find alternative pet care and what that looks like: That’s not your responsibility past a certain point. I wouldn’t leave without notice, but nor would I give them indefinite time to figure out their pets and home — otherwise, you’d be held hostage. If you do decide to leave, you could say for instance, we’re leaving at X time and date. And then they have a deadline to meet. They also might decide to return home early if they can’t figure things out. That’s not your responsibility. They created the situation by leaving their home as unwelcoming and unlivable for you. And as you say, you have photos to prove that.
And I’d suggest that you ask THS to amend the sit dates once you’ve decided when you’re leaving. That way, you can still leave a review and warn other sitters.
And presumably they can leqve a poor review for us, for leaving the sit early. I realise we could respond to that and our other reviews are all glowing, but it’s still another thing to contemplate.
In your situation, you could factually say that the home was left with X and you ended up spending X hours cleaning and felt misled and had to ask THS to shorten the sit. If your other reviews are good, few hosts will blame you for leaving a filthy home, especially if you have photos.
It might actually give a host pause and not shaft you with a filthy home, knowing that you won’t just take it.
That is their problem , they may have to come back early from their holiday but that is something they should have thought about when disregarding THS guidelines and common decency in preparing their home for you .
Member services can cancel the sit on your behalf if that is what you want . They can also explain to you how you can claim back the cost of alternative accommodation from the sit guarantee ( if you are Premium members) .
You have a valid reason and are giving them notice that they need to sort out alternative care as you are leaving in 1 day ( or whatever you decide )
Pet parents ( like sitters ) should always have a back up plan . What if you had been involved in a road traffic accident on your way to the trip and ended up in hospital /or some other extraordinary circumstance that meant you were unable to do the sit ?
Yes it would be easier for member services if you put up with the filth and continued on the sit . However you are not obliged to . Stand your ground .