We agreed to a 3-week farm sit in a rural area. We have done farm sits before. They all involve a level of work that we are certainly willing to do. They told us that the sit only required letting the animals out in the morning, a basic muck-out of the stall, and then feeding and watering. Then reverse in the evening. They said they had some dogs, sheep, 2 cows, chickens, and horses. They estimated 1-2 hours of chores a day.
When we got here, we found that they had sheep, goats, alpacas, donkeys, dogs, cows, 4 different types of horses, geese, ducks, and chickens. They feed and care for them “naturally”, and they stay in their pens. So the morning routine is over 3 hours of mucking, hand watering, and hauling the muck down a hill, plus a long time preparing feed with a lot of tinctures, oils, and mixes customized for each animal. The house is gorgeous, but they are animal hoarders.
Plus, they are part of the Quiverfull movement, so they are super religious and do not believe in science. They have a ton of kids, so the farm chores are spread out among the 6 kids. None of this was disclosed in the ad for the sit. So we are here now and stuck.
From now on, we will question each farm sit much more closely. We noticed that they were guarded in answering our questions and left us with an uneasy feeling before we confirmed. We should have listened to our gut and not accepted the sit.
Do they all need to stay in their pens? Maybe ask for a phone call with the hosts to renegotiate the care husbandry or you will leave. They have the option to pay somebody local to come every day for maybe 2 hours to help out.
You don’t have to do this.
They can come home or pay someone to do some of the work.
You can leave.
I’m sorry that you’ve been lied to and that what you clearly enjoy - farm sitting - has turned out to be a full time job .
You can leave with appropriate notice and reasons to THS and the HO’s and ensuring care and safety of the animals. Their clear deception justifies taking this option
Please inform THS of the deceptive post and leave a thorough, factual and honest review.
Also, listen to your gut and ask a zillion questions when applying for your next sit. Yellow flags ? Ask more questions. HO evasiveness or red flags ? Decline.
From personal experience, I know how much work it is (pleasureable …but work nonetheless) caring for animals under these conditions. At the very least ,I hope that the animals give you some joy here !
screenshot of the listing and responsibilities as it is now ( as it can be amended / altered / edited by the host at anytime )
take videos / photos of all the animals and food prep ( in case you need “evidence “ for THS to investigate )
You may wish to report this to THS as an inaccurate listing- there is a report button on each listing -However I don’t know if anyone at THS is actually reviewing/ acting on that data ??!
“whilst this might take this family of 8 only 1 or 2 hours between them - with only the two of us sharing the responsibilities it took us over 3 hours a day each “
Just wanted to say I am sorry to hear about this experience. It is one thing for hosts to forget to mention certain things by accident, but in this case, they outright lied about so many things. They did more than mislead, they outright deceived you.
That you recognized you saw some red flags and proceeded anyway is good. It makes the situation easier to deal with than if you just felt totally blindsided by it, or failed to admit you had reservations. These are the types of learning experiences that help minimize risk as we book future sits.
I agree with reporting the listing…they are blatantly lying.
So sorry it has turned out to be such hard work and longer hours than you thought. I hope it is a short stay. If it is a long stay and you find you are doing backbreaking work you may want to go through the appropriate channels and leave. Your health and well being and your partners health and well being always takes top priority.
That sounds like a very different proposition from the one you agreed to, particularly when the hosts estimated 1–2 hours of chores a day and the reality is apparently considerably more.
I think this is a good reminder that with farm sits, “What animals do you have?” probably isn’t enough of a question. I’d want to know exactly what the daily routine involves, how many people normally share the work, how long each morning and evening routine takes, and whether there is any food preparation beyond straightforward feeding.
I’d also be inclined to separate what is genuinely part of the agreed animal care from what has simply evolved into the hosts’ preferred way of running the property. Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Hopefully you can have a frank conversation with the hosts and find a workable solution. And if the reality is substantially different from what was agreed, I think it’s entirely reasonable to document that accurately afterwards so future sitters can make an informed decision.
If you were already getting a bit of an uneasy feeling from the video call, what made you decide to go ahead with the sit? Did the responsibilities sound a lot more manageable when you discussed them beforehand?.. or were they describing the workload shared between 2 adults and 6 children.
And I definitely agree with Silversitters. Screenshot the listing now and document what you’re actually being asked to do qnd the number of animals.Having a clear record of what was advertised versus the reality could be really useful if you end up taking this to THS or deciding to leave early.
Wow, I just googled “Quiverfull” and learned about something I didn’t even know was a movement! I agree wholeheartedly with others on here that you have gotten stuck doing something you did NOT sign up for. And other than established animal sanctuaries, no one would knowingly sign up for such a huge workload. I agree that you have every right (and owe it to yourself!) to give them notice that they need to come back or hire someone local to take on hours of the work each day. And I’m so sorry this happened to you! You might have noticed they were guarded, but don’t beat yourselves up about missing red flags - some people are just more reserved than others, and clearly you’re kind people who looked forward to spending a reasonable time each day doing farm chores and communing with the animals they did tell you about in advance. I sure hope this failure of a sit doesn’t end in loss of money for travel etc. Best of luck​
So, they don’t believe in science, but they’ll subscribe to THS, which involves phones, computers, vehicles…? I guess “science” pertains to those things that contradict their beliefs. Do they at least treat their animals well?
I ALWAYS ask for the WELCOME GUIDE BEFORE I agree to a sit
That’s the AGREEMENT. NO MORE NO LESS
I had a similar situation with expectations of care for the animals. We agreed to the sit
When the Welcome Guide arrived, it would included an unmentioned “noon meal”
Meaning, your free time was broken into three parts of the day So if you wanted to explore a morning or afternoon…NOPE, had to be back at 12:00 snack/meal
Do they have prior reviews? If so was anything said about this either directly or in a more subtle way? Hard to imagine that previous sitters would not have put this in a review and if they have no prior reviews, then yours will have a huge effect and give you the opportunity to effectively vent your frustrations.
Sounds like an absolute nightmare. 1. What were the previous reviews like? 2. Please review them honestly 3. I would arrange to leave, but bring THS in on the discussion.
People are reluctant to be the first to tarnish another members record so even if there are some small problems they might go with 5 stars and say nothing. But if things are really bad I think most members will reflect that in the review. What I’m saying is if you see a bunch of 5 star reviews while the sitter or host may not be perfect you won’t be getting into a terrible situation such as this one where the home is not represented honestly or as a host, where the pets are neglected.
Agreeing to a sit with no reviews on the other party is a big risk but I can see it happening when the sitter or host is in a situation where they don’t have any other choice (mostly a host with a holiday coming up, but maybe a sitter who goes from sit to sit and can’t or doesn’t want to pay for accommodations). In such case you need to be prepared for anything.
Not really. Everyone has to start at some point. I was given the chance to do my first sit when there were more candidates and I have had quite a few first time hosts and I don’t regret it at all.
Asking relevant questions and connecting with the other party is more important for me than a few default 5* reviews.
Perhaps my point was mis stated, I sometimes use AI to help with correcting my phrases.
Better would be to say that confirming a sit with a member who has no prior reviews carries a greater amount of risk than doing so with a member who has a good track record of positive reviews.
That’s an understandable point, but really I think more important and relevant than having zero prior reviews is the video call before the sit is confirmed. I’m only speaking from my own experience, but the one sit I had with a first time HO has evolved into a pleasant friendship, and now I’m going on my second sit with a new HO next week without any trepidation. I gave her some tips already on how to write her profile to make it more attractive and representative…it was iffy if I’d like the sit from the profile description, but I gave it a chance till we had our video chat. Turns out the vibe was spot on, she didn’t have a clue how to present the sit in the best light, including photos. The point is, new HOs without reviews are not the “red flag,” but an opportunity to use your own spidy sense and move forward . That’s my two cents. Oh, BTW, on another sit early in my brief career, I didn’t listen to my gut after the phone call ( not video…mistake # 1), and it was an awful sit which we both agreed to curtail after 10 days, costing me tons of money to enact “plan B.”
