An absolute and total example of how the overlapping rule can cause distress and inconvenience to sitters who are put in this and similar positions. They are literally hog tied to the sit, with no repercussions to the HO except for a bad review.
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My subsequent query - as reiterated on here - was: what if the pet parents can’t facilitate alternative pet care or dont agree to release us? That resulted in the email quoted earlier.
Weve decided we can do without the added stress of trying to negotiate an early departure from this sit. Weve cleaned the areas we’re using. All we can reasonably do is leave a factual review. The pets are nice, we’ll focus on that and put this behind us.
Thanks for the advice and support, folks.
Edited to remove Membership Services messages due to posting terms
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@Happypets enjoy the rest of your stay now that you’ve cleaned up. Hope that you can do all the things you’d planned during your stay .
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Thanks for your input, it’s appreciated.
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@Happypets I’m not surprised at all by this response. I contacted MS about a sit a few months ago that had multiple issue including a third party with with a key who could come and go as they please. MS said I could only leave if/when the HO made other arrangements, but there was no timeline on that. If they just chose not to make other arrangements I was expected to stay for the duration with the third party coming and going. According to THS it is ok for HOs to break the T&Cs.
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More and more I am seeing that THS does not value us sitters. I think my future sits will be few and far between with them. I just do not want to travel internationally and walk into a situation like that and have NO backup from them. Right now I feel fortunate not to have walked into any untenable situations but as a single female my own safety and health have to come first.
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What would REALLY happen if a THsitter said “I’m leaving on this date. MS, YOU have my reason/photos…YOU need to call the home host and work with them for alternative arrangements since THEY did not meet the code of conduct and they are YOUR paying customer. The home host is informed
of my departure date. Sitter out!”
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THS is crazy to say anything like this, because if anything happened to a sitter because of a third party, the sitter would have strong grounds to sue the crap out of THS, since the company essentially forced a sitter to stay in a risky situation.
@Jenny and @Carla, is this something you can raise internally?
(edited by Forum team to meet Community Guidelines)
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Yes, I was specifically told that I would be banned from THS if I left, despite the HOs clear violation of the T&Cs (there were other issues on this sit too). The HO didn’t see an issue with another person coming and going. I actually worked it out directly with the third party setting times and boundaries and having them text me when they would be coming to the house. However, had it been a situation that I felt unsafe, I would have left. Fortunately, I can afford to get a hotel. However, I worry about other sitters feeling pressured to stay in a situation that may be unsafe. Most hosts are great, but there are some bad ones out there. I think the member services team needs more training regarding how to support sitters if they do encounter a bad HO.
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Yes, totally hear you on your concerns. THS should consider this a safety issue for sitters. And for THS, not only would there be legal and financial exposure if anything serious happened to a sitter, imagine the huge PR nightmare.
You’re in a similar situation to one we had before Christmas. The advice we had after the sit had completed from THS is that we should have challenged the owner on their level of cleanliness when we arrived and asked them to hire a cleaner or sort the situation in some way and if they weren’t willing to then we should have left. Which is obviously easier said than done and you’re spot on when you say it leaves sitters in a no win situation. Either have a hideous confrontation and complete the sit with bad feeling or leave the sit early with bad feeling. The latter risks further disruption and upset to pets which is the reason we’re there so we’re rather over a barrel.
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It really is imperative that THS should impress on pet parents the necessity to leave fridges and cookers in a clean and usable state for sitters, as well as providing clean spaces for sitters to occupy, and left in no doubt that failure to meet these conditions can result in immediate termination of the sit. Possibly this sort of situation might not then arise.
To be fair, most pet parents don’t need prompting on this and we’ve had some great experiences, but this latest sit situation surely illustrates that some people do need to better understand the basic hygiene requirements of hosting sitters.
We, as sitters, need to be properly supported by THS when terms and conditions are not met by pet parents, not threatened with expulsion from the site and reminded we might receive poor reviews. A HO who’s not abided by the T&Cs should forfeit the ability to leave a review!
@ADF Yes, you’re absoluteky right in saying our concern for the welfare of the pets does leave sitters 'over a barrel '.
@ziggy It seems that, if pet parents won’t release sitters from the agreement - even when they’re the ones not meeting the T&Cs - sitters are indeed ‘hog tied’.
It’s all been learning experience for us.
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With hindsight I wish we’d done what you’ve now decided to do. We had managed to get the place to a reasonable standard for us to live there comfortably, were in a good routine with the animals and could have got out of there relatively unscathed and given and received an honest review. It would have saved a lot of stress down the line.
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This sounds exactly like the sit we’re currently on! Friendly homeowners but the dawning realisation that they didn’t think about cleaning up at all for us. Spilled soy sauce (I think) under the bread bin, empty wrappers and uneaten food in the living room, dusty bathroom with a monster spider in situ. Not ideal!
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This has also been my recent experience, unlike anything before. I’ve encountered super messy, cluttered, unclean, and even filthy apartments that people simply leave ‘as is,’ as if they were just popping down for a quick grocery run. They don’t seem to spend a single minute tidying up, moving their personal items like toothbrushes and jewelry, or making the minimal amount of shelf room for the sitters. I may add that many of them were new members and I was their first sitter
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@systaran that situation is completely untenable. I think we’d have risked losing our membership rather than being made to accept those terms.
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@Junipers We’ve done lots of sits for ‘first-timers’, without any problems. It does make you wonder though if this increases the odds of finding problem issues.
We’re booked up for the next few months but will consider sticking with experienced hosts for the forseeable, and scrutinising their reviews (although you do have to read between the lines a bit on reviews submitted under the old system)!
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It’s hard because first timers aren’t necessarily a problem. These guys hadn’t got any reviews when we booked the sit but do now have one (which doesn’t mention the cleanliness of the house - red flag!) But I do feel more and more hesitant to book sits with new HOs. We’re also booked out til mid May which makes me feel a little more relaxed in the types of sits we’ll agree to - when I took this one I felt like I was scrambling a bit.
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For me the biggest problem, frankly, and why I started this topic, is that the HO was incensed that I left her home as filthy as she had with the exception of the areas I had to clean to live there and generally picking up and sweeping when I left. It was uncomfortable for me but I didn’t complain about the state of the household (filthy) and I had a lot of work just taking care of the animals (four horses, two dogs and two cats) and keeping the fire in the house going so we didn’t freeze…I wasn’t prepared to deep clean a home that clearly wasn’t regularly and properly deep cleaned. Still the HO, a difficult woman at best, was outraged that I hadn’t cleaned her home for her. I didn’t think we were supposed to be housecleaners or I wouldn’t have joined.
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Same here! I’m seeing a lot of the junkie houses /apartments on THS. Dirty laundry on the bed, smelly towels in the bathroom, dirty toilets and showers, dirty kitchens without basic amenities (stove, fridge). Bugs crawling about making me cringe. This is the main reason I don’t do long sits (max is 14 days) to avoid being stuck in filth for what feels like an eternity. Seems like some HO does not care to leave their home clean and tidy for the sister to have a comfortable stay while we look after their pets. So disgusting!
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