Heads up on damaged items of a sitter

Owner Questions, Advice & Chat
1

We’ve had many wonderful experiences with TrustedHousesitters over the past three years, but we recently had our first difficult experience and thought we’d share a lesson learned.

Before the sit began, we carefully explained our house rules and reminded the sitter that Luna is a Labrador and, although this is not typical behavior for her, she is still a dog. We explained that food and personal belongings should not be left where she could access them.

On the first day of the sit, the sitter informed us that Luna had chewed one of her personal items. We apologized, explained that this was unusual, and again reminded her to be careful for the remainder of the sit.

Everything appeared to go well after that. However, when we returned home, we were told that Luna had gotten into a grocery bag left on the kitchen floor and had damaged several additional personal items. We were asked to reimburse several hundred dollars.

After reviewing the TrustedHousesitters insurance information, we understood that these personal belongings were not covered under the membership. Because we had discussed the issue after the first incident and reminded the sitter to take precautions, we respectfully declined the reimbursement request.

Unfortunately, following that decision, we received a very negative review that, in our view, did not accurately reflect what had occurred. It also included additional criticisms and descriptions of events that we did not recognize from our experience, which was both surprising and disappointing.

Our purpose in sharing this is not to criticize anyone personally, but simply to encourage homeowners and sitters to have a clear conversation before every sit about pets, personal belongings, and insurance coverage.

We hope our experience helps others avoid similar misunderstandings in the future.

2

Sometimes, communications can never be clear enough with some listeners. Not much can be done about human nature.

In your case, you have 1 and only 1 opportunity to respond to the sitter’s review of you. If you believe their review is inaccurate, say so in your response. Stick to the facts and leave out any emotions including the lessons you learned. Just stick to what happened and why you disagree with their review. A well written response can entirely mitigate a bad review. There is no time limit on responding so take your time and be sure you’re satisfied with it. A couple of weeks to let things settle is quite reasonable.

The sitter gets to respond to your review of them. You hopefully wrote an honest review and won’t be contradicting your own account when you respond to the sitter’s review. Delaying your response may well give you the opportunity to post the last word on the sit.

3

I hope you eluded to the request in your review of them. Going forward make sure your welcome guide and even profile states how tall Luna is on two legs and will confiscate anything she can reach so please remember to put all your unintended belongings in a closet or drawer and never leave food out. This happened to me on a non THS sit. The dog took one of my expensive Hoka shoes through the doggie door to be his new toy. I didn’t even mention it to his human family as I felt it was my fault to not recognize what he can reach. I had to trade the treat in my hand for my shoe as I ran after him on one foot.

4

My POV as a sitter: If someone tells me their dog (or cat) steals or chews up human stuff, I’d keep my stuff away from the dog. And if I forgot, I’d figure that’s on me.

5

I still use a hair brush with half a handle after my Labrador got to it, best hairbrush I ever had and even though that dog has passed on long ago I’m still reminded of him daily :wink:

6

@Andybed, welcome back to THS Forum. Sorry to hear about poor experience.

Thanks for sharing. We all learn together. Insight into limitations of THS Insurance - THS Sit Cancellation Insurance has some material limitations so not surprising that THS Property Insurance does too.

For what it’s worth, we agree with your decisions. The dog behaviour that you mention is not common but we have faced similar situation a couple of times on our housesitting experiences. If any pet parent provides clear instruction - ideally in the listing (ie. before sit confirmation) - on reasonable atypical pet behaviour matter then it seems incumbent on the housesitter to act accordingly. Onwards.

7

I can only second this as a sitter. After something got clearly communicated to you, it’s on you.

Also in case the homeowner didn’t disclose a certain “destructive behaviour”, because it never happened before, we never took it as their responsibility.

We were lucky though, as the damage or inconvenience caused by the animals was always minor. We had a chewed laptop cable (this was never an issue with previous sitters), cat marked suitcases (wasn’t marking anything since neutered several years ago), cat marked a laptop left on the table - luckily just the outside as it was closed (HO mentioned upfront that one cat tends to mark a certain spot on the floor and we were provided us with special spray for it, but there was no mention of “do not leave anything in their reach”)…

We always mention these things to the HO though, latest at the end of the sit, and tell them to warn upcoming sitters, just in case.
We had just a couple of cases and the HOs seemed suprised and were apologetic about it. Based on the transparancy of our communication I think they honestly just didn’t know.

It’s still animals and there are always “first times” for certain behaviours or relapses.

We always welcome transparency upfront so we can act accordingly, but you can’t predict everything. We are just getting more caucious with every new sit, when it comes to our valuables. :slight_smile:

8

I’ve heard that some cats mark when unhappy (not necessarily the reason or the only reason), so I err on the side of caution with my baggage — put it in a closet or in a room where cats won’t go. And laptop wise, I drop it in a drawer or such when not in use, because I don’t want to risk it being out of order if peed on while I’m telecommuting.

I figure that if I’m a stranger and their regular humans are away, cats are more likely to pee to show displeasure. Of course, not all cats, but I don’t want to end up trying to clean cat pee off a suitcase, clothing, etc.

9

100% agree

and also

Which tend to be more likely under new conditions or stressful circumstances.

In @Andybed case, the sitter had been warned, they already had experienced some damage to personal property and were again reminded

Adding to all that,

Given these specific circumstances, I wonder how many people on this forum would go and buy items worth

Leave them unattended on the kitchen floor and then ask the hosts to reimburse them?

I, for one, am really careful with items worth that much, even if there’s no pet around.

10

This is so true. I went away once before I discovered THS and got a friend to come round twice a day to feed my cat. He showed his displeasure by peeing all over our bed, many times by the look of it, ruining the mattress. He’d never peed in the house before. Lots of HO’s say to leave the bedroom doors open so that cats can go on the beds but I’m always a bit wary of that after my experience.

11

Yup. Cats. They will do what they want to do when they want ro do it. Small changes can trigger uncharacteristic behavior. So as a cat sitter, I expect the unexpected. More so for the cats that are shy and secretive. Very social cats never seem as bad.

12

Yes, I understand it was probably just the stress of the situation or them showing they are not happy about their humans being away. At least in our case the biological warfare usually happened in the beginning of the sit.
Thinking of how good their senses are, it’s also completely new smells we are dragging into their teritory.

I know several cats that wouldn’t just mark, but even poop around the flat, to show their discontent in certain situations, sometimes even when the owners would be there.
With one cat this was solved by adding one more litter box - there was just not enough choice it seems. :slight_smile:
One of my old neighbours had a cat that wouldn’t use the litter box as soon as they left for more than a day. He would just poop on the floor of the bathroom. At least it was tiles.
Oh, and there was one cat who would pee on the owners’ shoes when grumpy about something.

So yeah, better stay on the safe side. You never know.

13

You have a dog that like to eat people belongings. You can caveat this with “don’t leave anything within reach” but realistically that means anything that’s not glued to the ceiling or being a locked door is at risk. You’re going to get sitters who get their stuff eaten and leave you a negative but accurate review.

14

It doesn’t seem to be the case according to the OP

A bit of an exaggeration, I guess.

15

I have sat twice where the dog loved to chew on nondog stuff. Had to stay on my toes to keep everything out of their reach, but once I was acclimated, it became routine. Like one even tried to chew the mail or newspaper while I was bringing it in. She’d jump like she was riding a pogo stick. :laughing:

They made me really appreciate that my dog has never chewed on anything he wasn’t supposed to and never tries to steal food.

16

You must have missed the part where they said the dog ate the sitters stuff on multiple occasions. They also warned the sitter not to leave anything within reach. My experience of this kind of warning is that means the dog has definitely done this in that past.

A little, but not by much. I do recall an owner with a dog that jumped on tables and damaged a sitter’s laptop and the consensus amongst the THS crew was that on the table counted as leaving it within reach of the dog and therefore the sitters fault. I’m just working within those established criteria. I guess top of a wardrobe or bookcase would suffice but if tables are out then realistically the sitter can’t leave anything anywhere.

17

And the sitters will (hopefully) get a review noting that they did not pay attention to details given to them, in this case on more than one occasion.

I agree that anyone with a pet who likes to chew should put it on their profile, not just convey it in the pre-confirmation discussion, but if it is conveyed in any way prior to confirmation and included in the WG as seems to be the case here, it’s on the sitter.

18

Better to warn potential future sitters yourself, in your review.

19

True, and a couple of times we mentioned issues in the reviews, though not always going into all the details and not if things were minor.

Maybe it’s a fault on my side, but I don’t always have the patince for super detailed, super long reviews. I tend to skim those really fast if not noticing any star deductions.

20

Overall, what a pain in the neck! I would additionally encourage owners to choose sitters who are extremely unlikely to be so irresponsible, and sitters who seem to be self-sufficient financially and otherwise.