@GentleSitter - we had a homeowner come back several days early it is a stressful experience so I empathise with your situation.
https://forum.trustedhousesitters.com/t/home-owner-curtails-sit-by-coming-back-several-days-early
Unfortunately this happens too often and has been discussed here https://forum.trustedhousesitters.com/t/owners-geting-back-earlier
In fact date changes have happened on 7out of 12 confirmed sits in the past year .
On 2x sits the homeowners came back early , curtailing the stay.
5 x sits we found out after confirming the sit (but before the sit started ) that they would be leaving a day later or returning a day earlier than the dates listed . We only found this out because we double-checked the arrival and end date/ time.
In addition one (about to be confirmed ) sit we withdrew our application when we realised that the dates overlapped with the homeowners being at home for first 3 days of the sit .( this hadn’t been mentioned in the listing or our in conversations with HOs)
We now always double check with HOs prior to the sit starting and state the day of the week for example what time on Tuesday 12th will you be returning?
We just did this for our next sit coming up and was told oh actually we arrive home on the Monday so you can leave then … at least we know before doing the sit but that is an extra day’s accommodation to find and if we hadn’t checked I am not sure when we would have found out .