Thanks everyone, you’ve made me feel much better. I only had two days left and organized activities out of the house with and without the pet because they can stay home quite a while. Leaving in 24 hours and I’m in contact with support who will back me if I decide to raise a dispute or if there is no factual information in the review I receive. HOs attitude seems to have improved but I still think it should’ve been handled differently. I’ve definitely learned my lesson and also upgraded to premium which gives me further coverage for future sits.
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Thanks for the update and good luck wrapping up this sit.
Glad you are virtually out of this nightmare, @TravelingTranslator .
As a matter of interest, how were the photos on the original listing? I guess there were no clues as to how things were?
Bitte (!) schreibe im Anschluss eine ehrliche Bewertung, damit andere Sitter gewarnt sind!
——-
Translation by the Forum team:
Please (!) write an honest review afterwards so that other sitters are warned!
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Yes, please do write a factual and honest review.
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what do you mean if? It really ought to be raised regardless. Please raise a dispute. It’s for the protection of others, not just for yourself.
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It’s entirely your choice if you do this or not .
What will be the outcome of the investigation ? Some possible outcomes are : THS reaching out to host to inform them of acceptable standards and the responsibility of hosts to :
- provide a clean, hygienic and welcoming space for sitters.
- ensure their listing ( including the responsibilities section ) is accurate and up to date .
- State all medical conditions and pet behaviours in listing and before a sitter is confirmed.
After investigating the evidence you submit THS may even ban this member from the platform for falling to adhere to the terms for hosts and to protect future sitters .
Pros - THS can only investigate and act if evidence is provided . At this point in time only you have the evidence of the situation, so only you can submit this .
Cons - it will take up some of your time and you may have other more important things to be doing . A sitter may find it stressful to relive and document the situation and prefer to simply move on and to forget about the whole incident .
There’s no right or wrong decision , it’s your choice to make .
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Completely agree with @Silversitters. Only you can assess the effort/benefit ratio in this situation. Raising a dispute sometimes can make the other party to follow suit and THS would need some time to clear things up.
Regardless of the dispute, you should be very factual and specific in your review. This would be enough to warn prospective sitters.
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@TrustedTeam Please - as sitters - we ask you to address this common issue of Home owners not respecting their obligations at the great cost and inconvenience of sitters. We expect that they keep their part of the agreement too. Providing clean accommodation isn’t hard.
Solution: there needs to be a digital check off list the owners agree to PRIOR to joining. Specify what a “clean” property means. List all the preparation they need to do as bare minimum. Ensure their welcome pack is filled in PRIOR to advertising for a sit on trusted.
Red flag: when they provide a barely complete welcome pack (also give them the opportunity to upload their own if they have it).
Then, make HO financially liable if they don’t provide clean accommodations for travel costs of sitter should sitter choose to cancel. I promise you - they will take the time to clean - it’s not hard. For those that don’t, let them know the sitter is free to cancel if they don’t meet their basic obligations and that they may be liable for the sitter’s costs.
I had a situation like this, had to cancel and they were so awful about it. No apologies at all for my costs. Bathroom and kitchen were filthy.
Let this issue be over for all of us. I feel for this poor sitter. She should be paid to depart.
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The ideas of a checklist, and warning hosts that sitters reserve the right to leave if the home does not meet basic standards of cleanliness, are really good ones. If you haven’t already you should suggest that in the category geared towards that–can’t remember what it is title exactly.
But it is totally unrealistic to implement a policy of forcing hosts to cover the costs associated with leaving.
It is certainly an unfortunate experience to encounter a home in such a state that a sitter would feel they have no choice but to leave, but housesitting is no different than any other activity or endeavor in that there is risk; and sitters have to accept that, and think about what they would do in the event they needed to leave a sit because of unacceptable conditions, undisclosed responsibilities and the like. Fortunately, I don’t think this is something that happens very often.
I think houses in such poor condition are far from typical on the site-- I have been sitting for a decade and I have never encountered such a home…most are immaculately clean.
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That’s a fair point. However, I have heard of a lot of situations where owners don’t do the bare minimum and sitters pay to fly to them on the basis of them doing the right thing. In the least THS should define clearly what the “right thing” is. I don’t agree that sitters should accept this as a risk, if the site requires owners to provide clean accommodation. Just like owners expect us not to cancel etc. So, for that benefit, they should be held to account.
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There’s not much that THS can do to anyone. They could boot people off the platform, but since THS wants membership fees, it’s unlikely they’ll give those up.
You don’t have to agree, of course. But it’s unlikely they’ll do anything beyond what they already do — they email hosts and sitters check lists and have info posted on the platform about what’s expected.
Let’s hope they consider a more comprehensive onboarding process for home owners where they digitise checking off what their responsibilities are. This is a success method used by MadPaws. Before you start a profile, you must answer a series of introductory questions that confirm you understand the expectations of your membership. It’s not off-putting it’s actually fun. As long as sitters resign to compromise: money and time is wasted by sitters, by homeowners and by trusted house sitters losing money dealing with these situations. All of it can be resolved if there is crystal clarity on what is expected when offering a sit. Otherwise, sitters like this will continue to experience horror stories and the platform becomes a place that can easily be abused. Let’s hope a creative solution can be created to win-win for all. I believe leadership in clarity is the answer.
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I agree with everything said here, I got sucked into a sit like this once and the amount of gaslighting (which turned into verbal abuse) from the HO was ridiculous. As a sitter, and as a human, your health, safety, sanitation and comfort come absolutely first. You are never “stuck” having to be in some unclean, unhealthy situation no matter what. These are baseline considerations for yourself. Shame on those that try to talk you out of the baseline things!
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Doubt they’ll do it, because any friction introduced usually lowers revenue. THS was purchased by private equity and I bet they’ll opt to do nothing like that.
I do not doubt they CAN do it and I know from experience on other very successful platforms that it doesn’t turn home owners off…it educates them and benefits the entire community. There is certainly a sabotaging belief that both some sitters and THS have, that this can’t work commercially. However, I choose to believe their numbers will show it’s a lot more expensive dealing with the dramas and complaints which turn so many people off joining than it is to educate their community better in a non-offensive way. Even featuring blog posts by sitters educating them on how to attract the best sitters will be helpful. Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. Hate hearing about these abusive situations knowing there’s a much better way. If they don’t want to do a check off list, then create an educational video of slide show on how to create your sit on THS.
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“Sabotaging belief” — sounds like a misplaced sense of blame on your part. Doubt THS cares. Haven’t seen them be responsive to many member preferences, complaints or such. Reality is, they have little serious competition, so they have a lot of room to do what they please. Many of us simply have observed how they’ve run and drawn conclusions from that.
Cancel immediately, document everything and rest assured that after you share the review of what you went through in a factual and professional manner, no one will take whatever this HO has to say seriously, especially given your existing record.
What an absolute cluster. Don’t let those clowns gaslight you into feeling bad or ashamed for wanting to leave…honestly, the audacity.
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Hi Maggie. You seem a little upset here. I hear a lot of sitters make assumptions that THS won’t care. Well, kindly, if that’s what you keep retorting with - you’re telling them not to care. Please don’t disrupt my post with this perspective. It’s not helpful to progress and is based on assumptions you can’t know. I choose to believe they do care because it affects their bottom line (membership numbers). I don’t see the purpose in your comments at all that support a good outcome for sitters.
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You’re mistaken. This thread isn’t yours. And ideas are up for rational debate.
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