Yes, thank you for highlighting the fact that they specifically asked to NOT have face-to-face contact with me at either arrival or departure. I didn’t immediately think that was a red flag, but in hindsight: who does that?? If it were my home and pets I would absolutely want to make sure I had met the person and at minimum welcomed them to my home and showed them where everything was. I don’t know if I would have responded differently if they had greeted me when I arrived (meaning, have had the confidence to say “No, thanks” and leave), but it’s one more thing on the suss list.
Are you serious?? Absolutely not! I told her that I would be unable to do that. She said she would find someone else to do those two extra days, and I left at the agreed-upon time. Honestly, it’s just one more thing to worry about now. I have no idea if she was able to find someone, and am a little worried for the animals, tbh, but I did everything I could to fulfill my end of the bargain of caring for them properly during my time there I have no control over what they do after my sit has ended. I worry that if she does get someone else to come, and then they return home 2 days later, that perhaps the 2nd person who watched the pets would blame something on me- a mess, an accident, something not properly done, etc. and that might be used to give me a bad review. I have lost sleep over this! But I am grateful for the baptism by fire as I am a quick learner, and I learned quite a bit from this that I will take forward.
@AthenasDaughter sorry to hear of your experience.
When you write the review you will get prompts for the star ratings - click on a star and read what it says underneath ( some screenshots below )
When you have selected the appropriate star rating please add reasons in an unemotional and factual manner .
This will help warn future sitters .
I’m wondering whether you took photos of how you left the house to send to the owner where they will hopefully be writing a review and will know how you have left it. Having someone else come for the next 2 days complicates matters as owner can’t judge how you left house and also how the dog was. Something else to learn from @AthenasDaughter.
I’m also wondering whether they’ll be bothered writing you a review as they don’t seem to care much. It won’t affect you if they don’t as nothing will show on your profile the sit took place. I know you want your first review but this mightn’t be the one you want. Just ensure you review them - factual and unemotional. They have not treated you with respect and upheld their part in this equal exchange.
In future always do a video call before agreeing a sit and ask the HO to show you the pets during that. You will also be able to see how clean the house is. For this sit I would not review unless they do.
Why ?
A fair & factual review will for warn future sitter from walking into this situation blind .
Yes I agree with that. No reviews from both would be best. They would probably not give you a good one, especially if they discovered you left the pets alone all night.
@AthenasDaughter I agree with @Shyone it might be better to wait and see if they review you first before you review them. If you review first and they suspect you may have said something negative they will retailate to protect themselves. Then there will be a black mark on both profiles. But if they do post a review you should definitely post yours so your side of the story is heard.
If neither of you reviews then you can re-start your THS journey with a clean slate! That would probably be the best scenario for you!
Because it’s a first sit and they left the pets overnight
You can write a draft now so that you can edit it if needed when things have settled a bit and even decide if you want to publish it or not. You already had a nice plan for your review but I think you should include the last minute change in ending dates and the fact that someone unknown to you took over the sit. That way it will be clear that you can’t be held accountable for the state of the house and pets.
A few people have recommended that @AthenasDaughter does not leave a review.
Please @AthenasDaughter , you must leave a review to warn other sitters. You have 14 days from the date that your sitting ended.
The reviews are blind so she will not be able to read yours until she writes hers and vice versa. That way, you cannot receive a retaliating review. You both have the right to reply and there is no time limit on that
While the review system is blind, if a host smells a potential negative review, they will write a bad one. So it is not that blind. Also while the review system is blind, other hosts will be able to see the reviews that the sitter has left. So future hosts might not want to have a sitter who has left a bad review, for whatever reason (the sitter outed themselves in the review? the sitter broke the unwritten rule of no negative reviews on THS - what else social rules will they break? a sitter who has left one negative review might do it again, better stay safe? etc).
My opinion is that while it is noble to warn other sitters, it is not the responsibility of an individual sitter to risk their whole “career” in THS for that. It is a failure of THS, not of individual users, that the review system is not truthful.
In a potential hosts profile, sitters can see if a host has not received a review from some of their previous sits. They will make assumptions already form that, meaning that a sitter not leaving a review is kinda leaving one. Hosts can not see if sitter has not received a review from previous sits (I believe).
This means that the best case scenario here is as follows: sitter leaves a truthful review, warning other sitters (some like filth and not meeting hosts so again, give facts, not opinions in your review). Host does not leave a review. This way future hosts have no way of knowing that the sitter left a bad review to another host, and the sitter keeps their clean slate in reviews left and reviews received.
Best way to get that is by preparing a review now, but posting it on the 11th hour. This way the host, if they did not review yet, will probably not have the time to review, or at least to construct a high quality bad review.
Is it madness that I am giving such detailed tips on how to game the system? Absolutely! Please THS, help me out of my rabbit hole and do something to make the review system work!
For more balanced information, I have seen a lot of sitters who have left bad reviews and received them, and they still get sits. You either need to click well with the owner, or be happy with less popular sits, with more desperate hosts.
You’re of the impression that it’s THS’s fault that members don’t leave honest reviews?
Perhaps we should blame THS for global warming too.
I am of the “impression” that systemic change is fast and efficient, individual change is slow and not guaranteed.
Yes we absolutely should fight global warming with systemic changes, as those give the fastest and best results, and I´d rather not die.
While it is ok to blame individual: you can all you want, THS can take responsibility and THS can make changes that more likely foster certain behaviors. As an example we sitters can not message hosts who dont have active listings. Is that the fault of me, an individual sitter? Or of THS. By your preferred philosophy of humans, THS should not be blamed even for that.
(Also how about fixing the block function of this site? Yes it is my own fault I keep opening the hidden messages of idocsteve, it is my fault that I answer to them, but if you just give me a tool to completely block and hide them so that I never see them, I promise I will click it and this whole issue is behind us. Just let me do that! Btw this is here is an example of systemic vs individual change, so it is still on topic.)
You’ve forgotten that you encouraged members to NOT leave honest reviews yesterday…. Hmm major inconsistencies in your internal ethics.
I didn’t forget that I point out the possible negative ramifications of leaving a negative review, and nothing in my posts suggest that I did.
Members who leave a negative review may be subject to scrutiny and lose future opportunites because they may be viewed as the unreasonable one especially if they don’t have much history compared to the member they are reviewing.
This is precisely why I left a 5 star review for a poor sitter. This isn’t about the needs of the community, it’s about protecting my profile.
THS isn’t responsible for this behavior and they tried to discourage it with the double blind review system since so many members did it.
THS implemented a double blind review system in an attempt to encourage honest reviews since so many members were unwilling to review honestly, fearing retaliation. What else can you expect THS to do to change unwanted behavior? It’s not like they can threaten to cut off a member’s allowance.
I did take photos of the home, but this was after I had arrived because I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. At this point I am just hoping I will never have to use them for anything.
This is very helpful, thank you. This gives me a clear idea of what I should expect, and how those expectations fell far short of the mark for this sit. I really can’t see anyone else signing up to do this sit, if I am honest. It was a local sit for me, not because I was visiting/traveling or needed a place to stay. I have a lovely house of my own within 15 minutes of the sit. It was ONLY to begin to build some experience and reviews so I could have a better chance at international sits in the future, so I was not expecting the Ritz, or even to have a good time. It was over a weekend, close by, and i thought it would be easy and painless. The HO is nowhere near anything anybody would want to visit in their travels through the world, and the home itself very modest. I think they just wanted someone to watch their pets and they didn’t have the hundreds of dollars they would have had to pay someone to do that, if I am brutally honest. I will leave an honest review, but I know it will tank them as a HO on the site. I can’t feel too badly about it because the home IMO is unsanitary, and nowhere anyone would ever “enjoy” visiting or staying unless they were very, very desperate and in the area anyway. She has already hinted that she will leave me a review. So now we wait…
I would feel so remiss to not leave a review. I also feel that I was naive in accepting the sit under the conditions I did, but that’s on me. I cannot see anyone wanting to spend leisurely time in the house who is looking for the type of exchange offered by THS. It’s not free pet and home care. If I post an honest review they will not get any more sits, guaranteed. But I don’t think they are a good fit for this site. I think it was more of a situation where they can’t afford to pay someone to watch their pets while they were away and were looking for some “free” care. I don’t get the impression that should be the vibe of THS, and I hope I am right about that.