This is my first time using a house sitter. The sitter agreed to stay 3 weeks. I told her I would leave her $300 as well as the regular pantry foods.
4 days before I leave for Asia, she stopped by my house, reluctantly but on my insistence, to meet. She stayed all of 20 minutes.
Today she texted that she thinks my 2 year old 27 pound Frenchie is too energetic and that she needs $400 a week to house sit him and if not, we should cancel.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t find anyone on this short notice. I scheduled surgery and paid for a non- refundable ticket. I’m thinking maybe I have to give my dog away. I’m just like a chicken with no head right now. What should I do?
Is this a THS-sit? Then it should be reported to member services as an official Member Dispute as it is breach of terms for a sitter to ask for money. It is important that you use that term - you raise a Member Dispute.
This is blackmail in my opinion.
Depending on your location, you might get a sitter. With less than 7 days to sit you can also post it here in the Last Minute-section.
Have you talked to member services? If you use the chatbot you need to ask to talk to a human (probably twice).
7 Likes
Absolutely blackmail, refuse and report them and ask for help from MS asap @Marianne55 Gives all sitters a bad name & breaks all the rules of THS. #standyourground
6 Likes
We are not paid to house and pet sit it’s against TH rules. Report at once, you can advertise as urgent but you should always have a back up plan in case of an emergency so you may need that or use a paid sitter
4 Likes
Hi @Marianne55
I’m so sorry this is happening to you.
After checking your details I can see that you’ve raised your concerns about this with our Membership Services team, who are absolutely the right people to help you here.
Hopefully our lovely Forum members can give you some moral support on this thread.
Please keep us updated on how things are going.
Jenny
6 Likes
I’m sorry this is happening to you and I agree with the others that this is blackmail and goes against the ethos of the site. I’m glad you’ve reported it to MS and I hope that sitter gets banned from the platform. A couple notes/suggestions:
1 - post your listing in the last minute sits section and include a link so that we can provide feedback on how to optimize it. Please stick around and be responsive to feedback to get the best result.
2 - there is no reason to leave hundreds of dollars for your sitter. That’s not how this site works.
3 - even with a sitter you need to have a backup plan because emergencies happen. I would think that your backup plan should kick in vs you having to re-home your pet.
4 - it’s VERY VERY VERY rare that you will meet a sitter in advance of the sit so if this is a requirement for you, you must mention it in your listing and you must accept that it’s going to drastically reduce your options for sitters.
5 - after you post your listing in the last minute sits area, you should contact anyone else who happened to apply for your sit or anyone who has favorited it and invite them. This rarely works, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
Good luck!
6 Likes
This is horrible @Marianne55 and your first sitter too.
Just curious, why did you offer any money to begin with?
Are there friends, relatives, work colleague, neighbours that you can use as your plan B?
Please let us know how you get on with membership services and I sincerely hope a sitter at last minute can help you out. Best of luck. 
1 Like
I’ve met all of my sitters in advance but that was through Aussie Housesitters not THS.
Interesting. 10 years of sitting and I’ve only met people in advance twice and only because I happened to be in/near the area. I think that’s pretty common for sitters based on a recent thread on the topic. I wouldn’t personally apply for a sit that had an advance meeting as a requirement as it would be too difficult as I’m generally multiple countries away from wherever the sit is.
ETA - this seems to be confusing people, so to clarify, by meeting in advance I mean meeting days/weeks before the sit starts, leaving, and then returning later for the actual sit. I don’t consider arriving a day before the HO leaves to start the sit as meeting them in advance since you’re meeting them when the sit is starting not before it starts.
1 Like
yes I agree, all the sitters that applied were within driving distance to my home. I’m glad I did it too, have them come in person, it made my choosing easier as I saw first hand how they interacted with my pets and their body language etc. I personally haven’t done it, as a sitter, as like you, I’m usually a country or 4 away from the sit in question.
2 Likes
Report to THS now. What she’s asking is both immoral and illegal per THS terms.
2 Likes
Yikes! They definitely shouldn’t be asking for money. Was it that they ended up travelling out early to do this pre-meet and are asking for the travel costs? Still unacceptable but if I were the sitter I would have held firm on not being able to come before the sit unless I was already in the area.
Where are you? I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone - drop a post on the last minute section! If anyone had left $300 out on any of our pet sits I would have assumed it was a mistake. If they made it clear it was for me I’d be so reluctant to take it - you definitely don’t need to leave money as it’s meant to be an exchange. If I were a homeowner though I think I’d leave a $20 gift card to a local shop or some other nice welcome gift.
2 Likes
By your account, your sitter sounds untrustworthy.
If you were willing to leave money unsolicited in the first place, you could just kennel your dog if you can’t find anyone else to sit, paid or unpaid.
I don’t understand why you’d bring up giving your dog away. That sounds outrageous, like possible trolling.
5 Likes
I was totally panicked with this event. I love my dog. Hard to sleep without him
Wow that sounds scary not to meet in advance- so much trust to someone. Thank you for letting me know that
I did video calls instead. @Marianne55 Do you ever do video calls for potential sits?
I am sorry to hear this has happened and must be very upsetting. While I think it is possible for some new people to join the site ,and inquire about payment because they don’t understand the nature of the exchange, this definitely is not that type of scenario. I really hope that THS bans her from the platform and doesn’t just give some sort of warning–her discussion of money is not based on any sort of misunderstanding, it is a deliberate attempt to extort the host.
Hi Marianne,
With Trusted Housesitters the sitter is often traveling from a distance, so they won’t even make a plan to be in your area unless the sit is definate. You can’t ask someone to fly to meet you at their own expense and then reject them as a sitter!
You can and should look read the profiles of the sitters that apply and look at their reviews to decide if they seem well-matched and trustworthy. Then you can meet for a face to face online chat and ask them more questions about their experience and how they would handle some situations.
If you feel they need to “know” your dog, you can invite them to come and stay for a day or two as your guest before the sit starts. Some people might be fine with that others might not.
You can also look specifically for sitters who will be in the area and will be able and willing to come before the sit starts to meet the dogs and see your home – but this is after you accept them .
If these terms don’t work for you, you probably should not use the service. The problem with paying people is that this isn’t how this membership is done. The sitters aren’t your employees. They are exchanging their services as petsitters with your services as a provider of travel accomodations.
Hence the name “Trusted” Housesitters. Sitters are commonly multiple countries/states away from you so expecting them to travel to you to meet your pet before you even agree to have them as your sitter is unrealistic. That is why most of us require video calls before agreeing to a sit. Then you can meet live and chat and get a feel for each other.
For the two sits where I did meet them ahead of the sit, both I did a call with. One I just happened to be doing a sit in the same town at the time so I popped over to say hi. The other I was just happening to be driving by a week or so later. In both cases we finalized that I was going to do the sit before I met them in person. I wouldn’t even apply to a sit that had a requirement of meeting before they would choose me to sit so, again, if that’s going to be a requirement, you need to add it to your listing so people can make an informed decision. If that’s the case you’ll likely be very limited to only local sitters so using THS may not even make sense.
1 Like
@Marianne55 Was this sit an officially confirmed by you and accepted by the sitter and showing on your dashboard ?
Or did you request that the sitter came to meet your pets before confirming them as a sitter ?