@pietkuip Hinting that you had Dementia?
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Yes.
So halfway through the sit, I answered that I was sorry to be such a disappointment and that I could hand over the sit to someone else whose mental faculties they could trust.
That put an end to the insinuations and the constant stream of management directives. But it got me the three star review.
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That is very insulting, but i do like your response to them though 
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Re: the original post - it is interesting that sometimes “difficult” people will latch on to anyone that enters their orbit - because everyone else has learned to steer clear. If you’re trying to be understanding, you can be taken advantage of. Still, I’d rather err on the side of kindness (and preparation! And learning and trusting your own gut.)
On my worst sit, they treated me like a personal assistant, calling and texting daily to do little tasks for them, mostly regarding things they had forgotten to pack! I finally put my foot down when they wanted me to take care of their parking tickets for them…
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I don’t think so, although I still don’t really know what triggered it. It’s hard to say if it was the mattress that set it off and then the other allergens in the house and area that were prolonguing it, or if it was a combination of multiple things to begin with. Since I got to the house in the evening, laying on the mattress was one of the first things I did, but later also realized that these allergies were always worse at night no matter where I slept…
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We’ve had two really challenging sits this year. Both came down to poor communication and lack of transparency (or, in some cases blatant misrepresentation) by the HO.
The sit we just finished had a flea infestation! I’m extremely allergic to fleas and we couldn’t find a last-minute place to go for the remaining two weeks of our sit. When we told her we’d found, killed, and been bitten by fleas, the sitter confirmed that her cat (who had just passed away) indeed DID have fleas! They can survive 100 days as adults, and much longer as eggs. She’d done nothing to mitigate them in the house, nor had she told us there had been fleas. She wasn’t very sensitive (“I do believe you, but…” “We’ve never experienced this before” 'I’m mystified"). And she told us we could just “I dunno, go camping for a night.” She also had rat traps set up in the kitchen, and a critter living in her attic - none of this did she tell us in advance (rats or rodents can also bring in fleas).
It’s our responsibility as sitters to ask as many questions as we can and set expectations as best as we can. But we would have never thought to anticipate that we needed to ask about fleas or pests in advance. I don’t need to be babied or treated as a family member, but HO and sitters are in collaboration, and true cooperation requires honesty, clarity, and accountability.
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Our worst sit was our 3rd house sit where we naively agreed to look after four dogs. Three of them were small rescue dogs who were quite well behaved apart from a few quirky personality traits. The fourth dog was a nightmare.
He was clearly the favourite. The homeowner had spoiled him atrociously and provided him with little discipline. He would follow a few basic commands when it suited him.
To make matters worse he was absolutely huge.
Our first introduction wasn’t a positive one. The four dogs were very excited when we arrived and instead of the homeowner controlling the introduction they were allowed to run loose in the tiny cottage. I ended up trapped against the back of the couch with this massive dog (henceforth to be known as the ‘big baby’) jumping up and putting his paws on my shoulders to lick my face. The homeowner was incapable of pulling him off me and I ended up covered in scratches before my husband was able to fight his way through the chaos to pull him down.
Meal times involved the four dogs being split into three different rooms to avoid arguments. However this was a minor inconvenience compared to our daily walks!
The homeowner wasn’t able to control all four dogs on their leads, so instead would pile them into the back of the car and let them run around off-lead at a dog friendly area.
The ‘big baby’ loved to play ball but refused to drop it or give it back. The homeowner thought the best solution was to keep a pair of rubber gloves on hand. They would put on the rubber gloves and wrestle the ball out of his mouth.
I managed to refrain from commenting that this was just reinforcing his poor behaviour. Why would you drop the ball when there was wrestling and all sorts of fun to be had?
Unfortunately for us there was no way that we could put four smelly wet dogs on the back seat of our brand new hire car, so we were faced with a dilemma. Try to picture the scene….a tiny picturesque cottage in an idyllic remote UK village, windy narrow lanes leading off in all directions with high hedges on each side. We were effectively trapped!
Without the use of a car there was no way we could walk the dogs except to navigate those narrow country lanes, all the time hoping that a car didn’t come speeding blindly around a corner.
Did I mention the part about the homeowner not being able to manage all four dogs on their leads? What we didn’t realise was that this meant that none of the dogs leads actually fit them correctly.
We were walking down a narrow lane with all four dogs pulling in different directions when one of them pulled backwards sharply and slipped the lead over their head. Off it took down the lane just as a car came round the corner. Thankfully the car stopped in time but for days I had visions of having to explain to the homeowner how we had killed their dog.
To cap it all off, the homeowner required updates and photos four times a day!
We ended up sending short videos of us training the ‘big baby’. By the end of the long weekend he was fetching and returning the ball perfectly.
I’m pretty sure the homeowner got the point that we were trying to make!
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@PawsomePetsitters OMG What a horror sit!!! Good it was only a long weekend.
A lot of lessons learned there I guess!!
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@allegraoxborough What a nightmare for you to have to suffer. I’m itching and cringeing at the thought of it all! To not disclose any of that? How absolutely disrespectful, uncaring and very irresponsible- she does not deserve to have sitters. Did you report her at the time? Lessons learned as always, with horror sits.
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You must be pretty good!
I would like to see those training videos.
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Oh no! I’m really curious how your initial talks with this HO went, there must have been clues? Or was it a sit where you went in a bit blind?
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I think you hit the nail on the head here…
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Thank you for your note! We tried to resolve it with her, and didn’t report her. Yes - lessons learned! We’re due for a happy sit 
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@Hiya We were basically newbies and didn’t know any better!!
Our first sitting experience was when we planned a trip to the UK and lined up three house sits before we left Australia. We had an amazing time but obviously learnt a lot about what to avoid when planning future sits 
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@pietkuip He was actually a very intelligent dog. When he realised that we wouldn’t play with him unless he dropped the ball he picked it up surprisingly quickly.
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The owner is letting me off the leash… who’s the pet and who’s the sitter lol? Loved this!