Quite! I couldn’t agree more. I had an experience over four years ago on here where I had to leave a sit much earlier than it was due to finish because the HO’s teenagers had decided to come home early. I did oblige and vacate the house but as you can imagine, this was very inconvenient, pretty stressful and I incurred additional expenses as a result of this sudden change. I just got a lukewarm half-hearted apology from the HO saying “yeah sorry but you know what teenagers are like.”
I did flag this up to THS who said they’d take the necessary steps and address this breach of rules with the HO. Bearing in mind that incident happened in 2019, imagine my shock when the very same HO contacted me out of the blue earlier this week to ask me to do another sit for them. Obviously, I declined as all trust from my side has been completely eroded! It certainly says to me that there appear to be no real penalties whatsoever for HOs even with blatant rule breaching such as this!
@Sarah22 no need to feel guilty the HO can re-list if they find somewhere else for their son to stay or pay for a dog walker to walk/ feed the dog when the son is at work .
THS isn’t the right platform for offering an unpaid sit when a family member is still living in the home.
THS is about mutual exchange- sitter takes care of the pet without any charge to the HO in exchange for a nice place to stay ( without anyone else living there that could interfere with the sitter’s enjoyment and invade their privacy during their stay. )
There is also the safety aspect as HOs and their family members are not ID checked .
And if he works nights, he likely makes noise when he gets home and is awake for hours (I waited tables and would get home around midnight–you don’t just go to bed), then he’d be sleeping in or longer and need anyone else in the house to be quiet. No bueno all around.
Totally agree the home owner may need to seek dog sitting whilst son remains living at home if his working arrangements and /or lifestyle generally do not enable him to care for the animal. If so it is simply that THS is not the right fit for this as it is clearly against the rules of the site for anyone other than the sitters to be living in the house during a sit and undermines the fair exchange of accommodation for pet care.
Worse than that we arrived at a sit ot be told that a Ukrainian couple weer living in flat at the top of the house - using same front door etc…not what we expected.
On my first sit the couples adult son stopped by when I was taking a nap. I was startled and very uncomfortable. I didn’t know it was against the TOS at the time.
@Travelbuddies That brought up a memory from last summer. We also had a sit with Ukranian refugees- living in the garden house! We had been informed they were there but not that they had access to the main house. We’d also been told cleaners were coming during our stay so when one of the Ukranians came into the house we first thought she was the cleaner…until she started cooking in the kitchen & put a washing machine load on…no cleaning! We then tried to talk with her but she didn’t speak any English- she just pointed at the garden house! The cleaners turned up 3 hours late, totally disrupting our day as we had to let them in. They were Polish and also spoke minimal English. Later on the ex husband turned up unnanounced with their young daughter to collect something…
This was a 2 day/1 night sit!! As a result of all the chaos and confusion and the cleaners moving our stuff around I ended up leaving my laptop and cables behind and had to drive back specially the next day to collect them from the next sit 1 hour away!
A very unrelaxing sit!!!
But at least it got us another 5* review!
@Twitcher No we didn’t and she did not ask for any. There was not really anything positive to say (it was a last minute gap fill) so we preferred to say nothing- that also gives a message anyway without shaming the host on details! She did need a sitter to be there for her two very energetic dogs. We were told where to walk them and that they were great off lead and had good recall…so -ofcourse- after a couple of mins off lead they escaped into the bushes around the lake we were walking around and completely vanished! It took a good 15/20 minutes to get them back- with the help of a couple of other walkers! Sooo stressful as there was a main road near by…
Also the host left home so fast she had no time to change the bedding so we had to do that on arrival…At least the cleaners did most of the cleaning.
She was a super chaotic host!
I just had a look at her profile again and she’s had 8 previous sitters- we were no. 2
No one has left feedback except the most recent one- who only speaks about 1 dog so probably had an easier time overall!
With so many empty feedbacks her sit would now be a complete red flag for us!!
Yes @Lockstar I hear where you are coming from. It sounded like a nightmare ‘sit’.
I also do not leave feedback occasionally. Perhaps that may change with the new review system.
On a recent sit I did not leave feedback (just a reply to her review of us). There were issues I wasn’t comfortable with but other sitters had done repeat sits. I guess levels of comfort and cleanliness are subjective.
It took a good 15/20 minutes to get them back- with the help of a couple of other walkers! Sooo stressful as there was a main road near by…