The HO was way out of line. Accidents happen and a HO should be prepared for this. I would never have accepted your money if sheets were discolored by a sitter. The sheets still work-it was only cosmetic.
You did more than enough to rectify the situation and I think the HO took advantage of you. Shame on them.
We are both HO and HS. As a HS, I backed their car into something and broke a taillight. I was horrified and so upset. I let them know immediately and offered to fix it.
They were so nice. They called me immediately so I wouldnât worry. Told me they only cared about the dog and she was well cared for.
I did get it fixed as I didnât want them to submit a claim. It was expensive, but my error so I wanted to fix it.
I have been there now 4 times and consider them friends.
The situation was horrific to me, but thanks to the gracious HO, it turned out positive.
I have had sitterâs damage minor things at my home, and so what. The dog was well cared for and things can be replaced. Sitters are doing HO a favor and should be treated like family.
Hang in there and try again! It speaks highly of you that you cared enough to wash the sheets.
I messed up but got 5 stars for excelling the other areas!
Another homeowner read the feedback and had a chat with me about it and appreciated my honesty and is willing to utilise my services.
Thank you all so much again for your support here! Believe it or not I got accepted to FIVE sits since I posted this! They are all short term but I canât believe it. Hoping for the best in the future.
I feel terrible for you as I read this! As a sitter, I try very hard to ensure i donât ruin anything, like nice cooking pans, wine glasses etc. And Iâm 52! But accidents can & will happen. As a homeowner,I think most owners would realize this & cut you a break. Especially as a young & typically broke person! I would never have accepted money from you. Especially not that much & after you told them what happened & you felt badly. I believe both sides of TH take on a level of risk and as long as you kept the house clean & secure and the pets healthy & happy, thats all that should have mattered. You canât be uptight & do this. Donât let one person ruin the opportunities for you !
Hello @HOOPS4 and a warm welcome to the Community Forum and thank you for your contribution to this thread
For reference as a member, you can also add your TrustedHousesitters profile on to your Forum profile by following the attached link, should you wish. This will then enable others to offer you helpful advice and feedback.
If you are unsure how to do this, or if you have any questions at all, do not hesitate to ask, we are all more than happy to help.
I have attached a thread below, it would be great if you could join in with this as we think you could offer great feedback and your input would be a great addition.
Iâm doing all of these in my current home city (Seattle) - there seems to be a huge amount of sits here. Just want to build up some credibility and experience before I venture out into the rest of the world!
I messed. I cooked fish and after I was going to clean the sink and the dishes. The house had several cleaning products but I found out all of them were empty. I hate fish smell and had to think quick. I took toilet bowl blue cleaner and thought nothing about it. Unfortunately, they leave strike on stainless steel . I went to Home Depot, told my problem and learned it will go away but with time. Endless the HO was not happy.
Iâm not a sitter but a user of Trustedhousesitters and I think that was incredibly harsh to make you pay ÂŁ350 for sheets (very expensive sheets??). You can by whiteners that will remove pink/red wash disasters and I would have tried that and if everything had been great otherwise it wouldnât have been an issue. I wouldât let it put you off.
Hi @LisaJ and itâs lovely to see you posting again on the Forum
I have attached a thread below and it would be great if you could join in with this as we think you could offer great feedback and your input would be a great addition
I am not sure when your sit was with the sheets I would have scoured the internet for solutions to take the pink out. I would have attempted to replace the sheet, and I would not have given the host money. I agree with others who said that it was in poor taste of the host to take $350 from you AND to make you feel like you still didnât do enough to rectify the situation. My advice would be to:
Relax and enjoy the sit but do the job with the upmost integrity and care.
Always video call with a host beforehand, ask lots of questions.
Do not take any sits where the host does not seem kind.
Continue doing sits and use resources like the internet, if you have problems.
I have screwed up on a few occasions too. One time I took the dog on walk and it got super muddy. He was not trained well and upon entering the house, I accidentally let him slip by me and he jumped on the couch leaving mud everywhere. I spent days cleaning it. Luckily the internet is full of advice on how to fix and clean things. It was stressful.
I would prefer sitters not to replace broken items. A sitter locally-not THS once broke a bowl in the kitchen and replaced it with an identical one. She didnât know that I hated it and would have been delighted to have got rid of it.
I broke an expensive wine glass on current sit - I told the HO who said ânot to worry these things happenâ but I felt bad about it .
It was a make that I hadnât previously heard of but when I did a Google search for it I quickly discovered that it is very expensive
A quick search on eBay and someone was selling a pair of these glasses BNIB - I made a cheeky offer , explaining my predicament .
. For a fraction of the new price I bought them - but there was only a couple of days to go before the sit ended .
I am here to report that minutes before we left the sit the parcel arrived with glasses intact
You sound like a conscientious sitter that needs to be out there helping homeowners by pet sitting! Life happens, mistakes happenâŚand admitting them is the best remedy.You may be young, but you are wise and teachable and that will serve you well!
Once I went into the wrong backyard looking for the hidden key to enter a sit! Oops! Thanksfully, it ended up ok.
Mistakes happen! âŚbe kind to yourself. It is unfortunate that the Homeowner wasnt more understanding. You took responsibility and paid for replacement. Learn from it and put that knowledge into your future sits. Personally, I also had a miss-hap with SHEETS. LOL. The homeownerâs pup had separation anxiety and told me when I left to always make sure my bedroom door was locked, since the dog will rip the sheets out of anger that we left it at home. Well, on our last day the door wasnât completely shut and I came home to destroyed bedsheets. I was so upset that I didnât double check the door before leaving the home. Lucky for me the sheets were Target brand, $50 value. The Homeowners told me no worries but I offered to pay for replacement, just like you. Thatâs the responsible thing. The design was no longer available so I purchased a gift card for them and left it with a card/flowers. The owners left me a very nice review.
I took the experience and now make sure that if there are special instructions, I write them out on a post it and put it on the door⌠and triple check before I go out. LOL.
Get out there and get more sits under your belt. Pick ones that will be joyful and you feel a good connection with the owners. I hope your next sit is joyful.
I thought my last sitter had broken my espresso machine so I reached out to her (even apologized for bothering her with it) to understand what she had done to try to make coffee so I could figure out the problem and see if I could fix it, but honestly I wish she had reached out and asked questions (which I told her to do for anything) instead she felt like she would be bothering and tried to use it on her own and put coffee in the wrong pocket of the compartment⌠lol so it was really dirty and water was coming through the sides, but it wasnât broken! she offered to pay for the damage, but our thought process was, âoh we could just get a nicer one one nowâ my partner even started shopping for a new one not to say that what we have is crap, but sometimes accidents happen.
I found a couple of other little things broken too but not worth the time or money to even mention.
Believe it or not I got accepted to FIVE sits since I posted this! They are all short term but I canât believe it. Hoping for the best in the future.
not to say that what we have is crap, but sometimes accidents happen.