How to rebound from a bad rating

Sitter Questions, Advice & Chat
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Dear Sitters

How do you rebound from a bad cleaning rating? I have asked for feedback from the HO. The HO arrived 2-3 hours early, and I was rushing to make the beds and ensure everything was clean. I vacuumed as much as I could but the sweet dog kept barking at the vacuum; the sink disposal broke the night before their arrival, and I paid $500 for the repair (HO mentioned it has prior issues), calling frantically for a plumber, which meant I could run the dishwasher and was planning on after it was repaired (which was repaired after I left). I had washed their sweet pup in the bath the night before and was in the process of cleaning the bath when they arrived. I even had food and toiletries that I used during my sit to be replaced and shipped. I do admit, I left feeling that I wanted to clean more, but I didn’t have time due to their early arrival. All trash was removed, even their left over trash and their other private items left in the bathroom cans. I took excellent care of the pets and gutted they probably won’t have me back, and now my rating is tarnished. Beginning to think this may not be for me. :frowning:

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Can’t believe you paid $500 for a repair it had been issues with before.

You could consider giving a comment to their review to clarify, but keep it factual and unemotional.

Was the home not cleaned when you arrived? A sitter should leave it as found, not «cleaned». If the host hasn’t cleaned there isn’t a requirement to leave it cleaner. Some would, but I would be more likely to do extra for hospitable and friendly hosts.

So possibly «The home was left as clean/ cleaner than it was found».

Or at least

«With an arrival hours before the agreed time it was unfortunately not finished when hosts showed up. The sink disposal broke down the day before, and although I learned there had been prior issues with the sink I managed to get a plumber. It would however impact the possibility to go through my planned list».

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It seems they had not left the house in really clean condition. It’s funny that I’m finding more and more reviews that are mutually rated down on cleanliness. I guess in those cases the standards differ and/or either party feels it’s the other party responsibility to clean.

As @Garfield says, the best you can do is write a nice factual answer to their review. It would be helpful if you mentioned something about the subject in your own review, that way you would be able to refer to it. If you didn’t, I would not mention it specifically but maybe hint at it. Something like

“I am sorry the house was not as clean as you (or I) would have liked. I was in fact trying to leave it at least as clean as you left it and, although I did in some areas, I am aware of some shortcomings due to your early arrival and the sink disposal breakdown. Perhaps next time I should plan my cleaning more in advance, in case the owners arrive sooner than expected.”

Just an idea, I am not very good at this but I am sure you will get great suggestions. I like @Garfield’s second suggestion but I would like it to include some very slight reference to the fact that you did take out their rubbish

Something else you can do is mention this in your application or say that you are happy to explain. Being upfront and honest about your experience should help reasonable owners understand and empathize.

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I hope you were promptly reimbursed the $500.

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Respond to their review in a way that takes responsibility (because the place WAS untidy, you know that), but make sure you mention about them arriving 2-3 hours earlier than expected. Keep your response nice, friendly, and respectable because future HO’s will read it. Don’t do the tit-for-tat thing, you’ll make yourself look bad.

Then smother that review in 5* reviews quickly, so it doesn’t negatively impact you in the future. Deliberately take 2 night stays so you can do more sits over the space of a couple of weeks, so that it vanishes sooner rather than later.

We’ve always got 5*s, HOWEVER, if an owner came back 2-3 hours earlier than planned, they’d see the place a total mess, with half rooms cleaned… an organised mess in our eyes, but a total eyesore to anyone else, and add to that a vacuum cleaner standing in the middle of room, a mop, and our bags etc lying around and it makes it look even worse. We try to now clean 1-2 days beforehand, but it’s incredibly hard with dog and cat fur, and mucky dog paws etc. We always find out the HO’s flight times, so that even though they give us an approx time that they’ll be home, we can double check ourselves on google for the travelling time too.

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You posted about this on another thread @Mexicobound and it appears that you have already replied to the HO review. Is this correct? It is only possible to do thst once

([quote=“Mexicobound, post:6, topic:60924”]
In the end, I left a very cordial and pleasant comment to her rating.
[/quote])

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Sounds like you need to move on, because the only thing left to do is to offer to explain the bad review if prospective hosts ask. And if you’ve had a slew of great reviews before this one, reasonable hosts should be able to see it in context.

For future sits, I suggest cleaning as much as possible a day or so ahead. Personally, I do that, because something could come up last minute, especially with my telecommuting. But other stuff can go wrong, too. And it’s best to avoid scrambling to clean last minute.

I figure I’ll eventually get an unfair review, but meanwhile do everything reasonable to prevent that. That includes paying close attention before accepting any sits, to gauge how reasonable the prospective host is.

With any sit, I consider the host the No. 1 potential deal breaker. I ask myself, if things went sideways, would this host be a good partner? If not, then I’ll skip the sit, no matter how good it looks otherwise.

You also can tell in the tone and substance of their listings, messages, video chat and welcome guide if they’re rigid, exacting, entitled, etc. I suggest looking closely for such signals and asking for the welcome guide well ahead of the sit — that’s to give you a chance to raise Qs or concerns, or to see if there’s a significant mismatch.

You also might mutually adjust expectations, if needed. Like you mentioned on another thread that the host didn’t provide bottled water for you. I doubt most sitters or hosts would expect that, but if that’s significant to you, you should mention that before a sit.

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It’s impossible to know from the post why the HOs returned early - did they decide to return earlier without properly notifying the sitter? Or maybe traffic was better than expected or the flight landed earlier. Would hosts be expected to just kick back somewhere in those circumstances? And honestly - 2-3 hours is not that much of a difference, unless that difference is returning at, say, 6am instead of 8:30am.

There’s no way you should have paid for the repair of the garbage disposal, and I hope the HOs refund that promptly.

It does sound like a lot of things were left to the last minute that could have been done earlier, and hopefully this will just be a learning experience and as mentioned above, you can bury this with future successful sits.

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My POV on arriving early: I wouldn’t do that to anyone, whether I’m a guest or host. I imagine if someone weren’t dressed, weren’t packed or had to otherwise scramble, because I surprised them. And for telecommuters, they might be in a video meeting if you suddenly turn up.

If I unexpectedly arrived early, I’d go somewhere and grab drinks or a meal. If it’s early, maybe stay at the airport. Or at least give someone a heads up that you’ve landed early.

I’ve been selective with hosts and tried to gauge how considerate and reasonable they were. Also to ask for specific departure and arrival times. My hosts have been overwhelmingly considerate that way — they even text or otherwise message me when they’re boarding, when they’ve landed, when they expect to arrive once on a shuttle or train, or even when driving or flying their own plane, none have surprised me.

In two cases, there were emergencies — one host was badly injured and had to cut short their trip to return home for follow-up surgery and other care, and another set of hosts returned early when their aged and sickly dog had to be put down and they wanted to say goodbye. Even in those extreme cases, they told me when they’d be arriving, given adjusted travel schedules. I’d consider that type of consideration part of mutual courtesy, communications and success for sits.

If I saw in a review that the hosts turned up early and surprised the sitter, I’d pass on that sit.

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I get what you’re saying. But I don’t see 2-3 hours as significant, unless it makes the arrival a weird time as mentioned upthread.

I returned from a trip where the sitter had my return fight information. I texted when I landed and gave an estimate on when I’d be at my home via public transit. Customs was astonishingly fast (for once) and I texted when I was on transit with a pretty reliable ETA, probably 45 minutes earlier than my first estimate upon landing.

Do you think I should have parked it somewhere for 45 minutes, after a 16-hour flight? Because I don’t. Sitter was not 100% finished with all cleaning, and I didn’t care.

I do agree that showing up early (or late, for that matter) without any sort of notice, is extremely bad form. Everyone has cell phones these days. I did not get the sense from OP that this is what happened here.

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I think if I arrived early without/ very short notice and needed/wanted to go home, I would not want the sitter to keep cleaning. I would take that upon myself. So I would free the sitter for that and just let them prepare their own journey in peace.

I think that would be how I would handle a situation like that. Arriving hours early and dock stars for cleaning is rather odd to me.

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It sounds like the hosts did not communicate their earlier arrival and just showed up which is unfair and discourteous. We had that happen once and got caught in the final stages of cleaning so felt rushed to finish up & leave. It spoilt the tone of the sit a bit.
I’m surprised that you even want to sit for hosts like that again after this experience! And I certainly hope you have requested reimbursement of the $500 if it has not already been offered. There are so many great hosts and gorgeous animals & homes to enjoy. Don’t fixate on this sit and don’t give up sitting because they knocked stars off. It happens to the best of us! Focus now on burying that review with other better ones. Quickest way is to do a few short sits. Before you know it, this sit will be history!

Edit - i just saw a more detailed comment from you about the sit in question. 2* on cleaning and no response to your polite request for reasons. Those HOs sound entitled and unfair. From all the details you provide it sounds like you did a great & heartfelt job. Having that plumbing issue last minute would have stressed anyone and upset the cleaning plans. Its good you responded cordially. I’d suggest, if any future host asks, just explain the situation, the breakdown, the HOs coming back early etc. Most people would have some empathy. Those hosts were not worthy of your efforts.

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So would you be OK as a host if your sitter showed up two or three hours early? Most people aren’t usually sitting around doing nothing before a trip, whether as a host or sitter or other type of guest. They might well be busy.

As a telecommuter, I might be having a video meeting for work, for instance, with a bunch of people on the other end. It would be disruptive to have someone turn up. Some telecommuters do work that requires privacy, along with quiet. At home, I even have a sign on my office door to indicate that I shouldn’t be bothered by my husband while I’m in meetings.

Personally, even as a guest invited over to someone’s home, I don’t arrive early. Say traffic moved faster than expected, then I park myself till it’s actually time to arrive. I even made that offer to a host recently when my three+ hour drive went faster than expected. I offered to go get coffee or breakfast if they weren’t ready for me, because I didn’t want to inconvenience them.

In the scenario you described, I’d contact the sitter and ask whether they’d rather I stay at the airport or whether they were OK with me turning up early. And I’d respect their answer out of courtesy. The expectation for sits is that the sitter gets privacy. Why should that be randomly voided early?

Adding this, which I just stumbled across on a recommended thread that’s old:

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Absolutely! Appliances fail, and your original post suggests the HO knew this one had ongoing problems. No sitter should foot the bill for such a repair! Have you provided the HO with a copy of the receipt and requested reimbursement?

Agreed! We always do our final clean the day before departure, so that just a quick once-over is required before we vacate. We keep reasonably well organised throughout the sit and this tactic makes things much easier, as well as giving us some peace of mind.

How many stars was the rating you received from this HO? How was their feedback damning?

You can help yourself, going forwards, by tweaking your departure routine a little. Did the HO advise you of their earlier-than-planned return?

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Yes. To me, if leaving things late, we’re more likely to miss or forget something or maybe even break something while rushing.

Personally, I’d rather not risk rushing and doing a suboptimal clean, even if I clean only to how a home was turned over to me.

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If they communicated, and the reasons was one of above (traffic better than expected, or flight landed early), and I was available, sure. I’d also let them know that the house might not be ready for them. I hosted couchsurfers for years - they are not known for punctuality.

Context is everything, and we don’t have it in this thread. Also, communication. We can argue about the what-ifs, but it does seem the best takeaway for the OP is that they can hopefully bury this with great reviews quickly, and that it’s a great idea to do anything that can be done ahead of time, prior to the last few hours. And that is definitely what I do as a host.

ETA, in case it’s not clear, I said in my first post that any host who just shows up early without notice is acting in bad faith. Anything I’ve said about flexibility of timing applies to hosts and sitters communicating along the way.

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Randomly, this line of discussion reminded me of decades ago, when other interns and I were invited to the top boss’s home for a party.

One of the interns arrived early and, because it was a home in a pricey, secluded hillside spot, they didn’t have window coverings. The intern ended up catching the top boss putting on his pants before the party. :rofl: I wonder whether he still arrives early when he’s invited to someone’s home.

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As sitters, we agree time of arrival and departure with HOs before confirming. If we make good time and arrive in the area earlier than planned then we’ll have a coffee somewhere or go for a walk. We wouldn’t dream of rocking up 2 hours early, any more than we’d think it okay to be 2 hours late. Why should things be any different for HOs? It’s discourteous to expect other people to accommodate your last-minute schedule changes, IMHO.

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I agree. I was literally taking the trash out and she was on her doorstep. I did tell the HO that I still had cleaning to do, and I understood she was coming in from an international flight wand wanted to rest. I certainly wasn’t going to make her leave her own doorstep. I didn’t even have time to gather my food etc. To make it more of a punch, I had Amazon deliver several food items and toiletries that I used; like coffee, shampoo, chips, bottled water etc ($100).

No, I didn’t get $500 back for the disposal.

I do know her pets were 1000% happy. Several walks, dog parks, trips to outdoor coffe shops, car rides, meditation evenings and bathing.

As I left she even texted me “house looks great!”

Since I only have two sits, her rating knocked my overall rating to 4 stars. My first sit was amazing.

I really loved her pets and home, and was looking forward to sitting for her in the future. :frowning:

All I can do is learn, clean early, and make sure we both agree on a cleaning/leaving checklist.

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US currency??

It is the HO that is misbehaving. Get that money back!

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