Just finished our first time with a THS sitter. He was the worst pet sitter we have ever used.
We have used other services, people have entered the home 100’s of times over the years to take care of our cats. Never a problem. This guy broke a front door knob and locked himself out. I had to instruct him via text how to screw up a window so he could break into our home. The next day, he was locked in the house and I had to help him remove the broken parts. Mind you this is an internal door that does not even lock.
We asked him to let us know how the 3 cats were doing. Zero communication the entire trip, except when he broke the door.
When we got home the litter boxes were dirty. We left plenty of food. He used it all and did not think it was important to let us know there would no food when we arrived home. The shower was filthy. He was too lazy to spend a minute to wipe it down.
My partner thought it would be wise to give him a decent review so we would not get a bad first review. I gave him a wholly undeserved 4 stars. She was wrong. He gave us 3 stars and complained that he had to sit in his car to stay warm because the door broke. He complained there are no curtains. The long bits of cloth dangling from bars above the windows beg to differ. He was nice enough to visit beforehand. If he was afraid of the boogeyman getting in through the window shouldn’t he have cancelled?
I am furious! He should have received a 2 star review.
THS reviews are “double blind” . Neither side sees the other review until both are posted or 2 weeks goes by at which point no review can be left. Reviews cannot be changed without intervention of THS but there is one opportunity to post a response.
The better way to handle it would have been to remain calm and non emotional and not get angry and blame them because that’s almost going to guarantee a negative review.
You’re furious because you left a good review for a poor sitter who left you a negative review. Whose fault is that?
If you expect a negative review then the best strategy is to post a negative review as well, so as to offset or prempt the one you are going to get.
As far as the locked door situation, it’s a good idea to have one or more spare keys either hidden or in a lockbox to avoid exactly this scenario. The sitter is advised in our WG the location of the extra key in the lockbox with specific instructions to immediately replace it if used so it doesn’t happen again without having a key (our front door self locks when closed so it can easily happen).
Door knobs don’t break very easily, I suspect there was an existing problem or it just wore out. Based entirely what you wrote, I think you may have been somewhat unfair as to how you treated the sitter.
The original reviews can’t be changed, but you can respond to his review of you. Keep it factual and unemotional, mentioning the lack of cleaning and poor cat care, and that he broke the door. He couldn’t have seen your review of him until you had both left one.
Yesterday you suggested that new HOs give sitters good reviews as to not look bad to future people seeing what they have written! Please consider your internal inconsistencies.
First of all: be slow right now! You have all the time in the world. The window to respond to a review is infinite. Wait to see if the sitter leaves an answer to your review, so that you have as much information as possible. Potentially write to them privately to let them know about the issues (f e “food is not included in the sits”). Only if you wan though. If you have no sitter needs in the near future, you can wait until you post a sit again. Of course if you want to warn other hosts about that sitter, you need to act bit faster (when a user sees a bad review on THS, they usually follow it, to get two sides of the story, so they will probably see your response).
Take your time so that your disappointment and anger of “doing the nice thing” backfiring does not show.
What comes to doors (and food), more communication can help. I sit internationally, so when I arrive to a new place, I usually ask for the keys, and then lock myself out and get in again. Just yesterday I arrived to a new sit (via lock box) and had to spend nice ten minutes figuring out the double lock of the door. I probably kept locking the one while opening the other, and vice versa After 50 sits I am very used to problems with doors, so I treat them super gently, usually suspecting that I am turning it the wrong way, or that I need to push or pull or whatever. I come from a country with almost 0 lock problems. I dont know what is wrong with the rest of the world, our locks are pure smooth… anyway, so as a host I would have the sitter try the doors.
Perhaps the locks in other countries operate differently and you are not familiar with them.
If you lock yourself out of the house prior to testing your ability to operate the mechanism you may find yourself unable to get back inside. Given the difficulties you regularly experience with locks it’s a reasonable outcome.
You have already received some good advice. I agree that you have plenty of time to think about your response, you can even post your draft here if you like. There are some forum members really good at wording negative facts nicely. There are also lots of sitters here that can tell you if they would be put off by your response before your post it.
You have 1 option left for this sit. You (and the sitter) get 1 chance to respond to their or your review. There is no time limit to responding so take your time and make it count. It’s going to be tricky rolling back on the undeserved 4 stars
Your partner’s wisdom is shared by a (very) few but very vocal members here: give undeservedly positive reviews to somehow make your profile look good. I think that idea is going backfire often as not as it did for you A sitter (or host) who does a bad job knows they did a bad job and may write a preemptively bad review to muddy the waters. Because you gave a 4 review, you’re constrained in what you can say in a response without looking bad in the process. But at least you can open a response saying that you tried too hard to be generous. But imagine if you’d given them an undeserved 5s which is a recommendation offered by a few (2) members here. Talk about being left holding the bag.
This opinion doesn’t represent what the majority of forum members think. It’s, in @OnTheRoadAgain words, @idocteve toy horse that he beats now and again.
I know owners’ perspective might (or might not) be different. But my own perspective as a sitter is to write honest reviews independently of what I may expect. I am not at all bothered by potential rejections because I don’t want to partner with people who think it’s OK to have a filthy home or to disclose pets and house tasks at the very last minute. I don’t want to be scolded either even less so for reasons unknown to me, just because the host gets up in a bad mood. I wrote a clear, honest, detailed review about most of the problems I had in a sit. I didn’t wait to see whether the host posted his but I took a couple of days to read and correct my draft. This review has not stopped me from getting other sits.
For owners or full time sitters it might work slightly differently, it would probably depend on whether they are willing to compromise and have a less than perfect partnership.
@idocsteve defends his position strongly and repeatedly and, of course, it’s his choice what reviews he writes or what kind of reaction he anticipates. If I were in his position, having lots of sitters to choose from, I would be more interested in avoiding bad matches than potentially reducing a bit the pool of applicants, on the contrary, I would be glad to have part of the job done by those potential applicants excluding themselves because he said that the dog hadn’t been picked up.
As a sitter if I read that in a review, I am more inclined to see that as a sign of affinity rather than a risk for my rating.
In this quote, I am referring to my reaction to a review written by a host. I haven’t seen any sitters saying that they would not apply if they saw an owner complaining about dog poo not being picked up. What I have read is some sitters say they would not apply if a dirty oven was mentioned. Others, myself included, are perfectly OK with that.
Regarding
I am aware of that and I did address that in my post too
If I can avoid bad partnerships, I do. I never have my mind set on a particular sit, location or even specific time. I go with the flow.
Likewise for me as a sitter. I figure if I have to help perpetuate bad sits and bad hosts, it would be like peeing in a pool that I also swim in. Nope.
For me, I have high standards about whether to sit at all (doesn’t matter whether via THS or otherwise). Even if not, I’d still travel.
All you can do at this point is respond to their review. The door knob breaking is weird but you can mention that many others have gone in and out with no issues.
I assume your listing has photos that show the curtains so you can just refer to those.
If it was a short sit (like a week) the sitter may not have known to clean the shower. I clean the bathroom before a sitter arrives and don’t expect them to clean it again, I do so when we return. In the future, leave a ‘departure day checklist’ of items you would like the sitter to clean before leaving.
Eating all the food is rude. Did you say they could help themselves to it? I leave a general guideline for food - sitters are free to use what they wish but if they use a lot of something or the last of something then please replace it.
Sorry this first experience was so challenging. With experience you do get better at screening for better matches.
You can’t change your review, so I’d advise letting it go. I’ve had many THS sitters and also do some sitting myself and my experience has been very different.
The first thing to know is that this is a matching site and not a service, so it’s really important to make sure to read the reviews (and hope they are accurate) about the sitter and to read the reviews the sitter writes and to look for the responses.
Sitters are not entitled to your food. I always tell sitters they are welcome to help themselves and it’s very rare that anything is used and generally if it is, when I return I find replacements.
If you ask for text every day, you should get a text a day.
There are some things which I know from reading the forums “wrong-foot” sits. Doors that lock behind you when you go to collect the mail, etc are one of them. In my home there is a bottom knob lock that I leave unlocked for sitters with a warning and advisory to keep it unlocked. I would strongly suggest that homes either not have automatic locks or have a neighbor with an emergency key, or hide a key, or switch to a numeric lock or something.
Because this was your first sit, and the sitter left you a not great review, I’d suggest addressing this in your listing. It’s the elephant in the room. EG: “Our first THS didn’t go great for several reasons. We’ve made some changes, so that sitters won’t risk getting locked out, and are looking for someone who will send daily texts so we can troubleshoot issues together. “
@Marion and @Felinelover In my reading of the initial post, I thought the reference to food was pet food. It merely says ‘we left plenty of food’, and it was immediately after the statement about the litter boxes. Maybe @Sean should clarify that.
After 50 sits I am very used to problems with doors, so I treat them super gently, usually suspecting that I am turning it the wrong way, or that I need to push or pull or whatever. I come from a country with almost 0 lock problems. I dont know what is wrong with the rest of the world, our locks are pure smooth… anyway, so as a host I would have the sitter try the doors.
review, you’re constrained in what you can say in a response without looking bad in the process. But at least you can open a response saying that you tried too hard to be generous. But imagine if you’d given them an undeserved 5