So how should we deal when a HO decided to let you know 2 hours before their arrival, that they will return a day earlier and “they are very sorry?” We understand that it can be hard for them, but the platform doesn’t help us Petsitters, but only if we pay more to have the “insurance” with the premmium accounts. This already happenned several times with me, and this is getting me really stressed with the platform, even because they could totally decided to review us badly, when they broke the THS contract getting days earlier.
That sounds pretty lousy. I’m sorry this happened to you. Did they explain why this is happening? Did they tell you if you can still spend the night as their guest? If not, did you let them know that you neither have a hotel reservation nor the budget for one?
That is seriously horrible. They should stay the night in a hotel or pay for your hotel stay. Please write a truthful review.
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I haven’t had this happen but would like to know how THS handles this. Isn’t this against the terms? It would be the same as cancelling last minute. Agree with @IHeartAnimals - they should stay I in a hotel or pay for yours.
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At the end of the day it’s the homeowners place so they can come back whenever they want - THS wouldn’t prevent it.
But in reply to the poster that’s very off and most homeowners wouldn’t do that in my experience. Have they not offered to have you stay til the end of the sit? Reviews are blind so you could mention it in a balanced way e.g. "the pets were lovely, house clean and comfortable but we had a bit of a stressful end to the sit as the owners unexpectedly came home a day early with no notice which left me in a bind’
I hope you manage to get something worked out OP.
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Is there space for you to stay eg a spare bedroom? You could always be very nonchalant about staying the last agreed night and take it as a given. Unfortunately owners returning early is pretty common. I had at least four sits like that last year. Thankfully it actually worked better for me on three occasions and I think on all occasions there was a half hearted offer to stay somewhere in the house or at least the question was asked whether that would be okay with me - not sure what the outcome would be if I had said no.
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This somewhat happened to me recently. The HO came a day earlier but she let me know that I could stay till the last day if I wanted. Did they not offer you to at least stay till the end of the sit?
Yes I’ve had this happen to me (although fortunately not at 2 hours notice). It’s really bad. It makes it basically like you are ‘staff’ who have no say in the arrangement, and also I usually take at least 4 hours to throughly clean a placed I’ve stayed.
I’ll be interested in Admins response to this as it’s very unfair but, as far as I know, there are no THS policies that cover such a situation?
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Yeah but it’s not just about having a hotel stay, it impacts the time you have to clean to house etc.
Agree. I’m interested in Admins (by the way THS doesn’t allow you to tag @ Admins) 
for their attention.
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I’ve had it happen to me and, I agree, I think a ‘neutral’ flagging in the review is a really good idea so that future sitters can maybe establish ‘boundaries’ in their conversation for future sits
I have been in this situation- THS advise you to work it out with the owner .
The sit guarantee covers trips that are curtailed when HO comes back early . However the first $100 of a claim is deducted Sit Cancellation Terms - sitter | TrustedHousesitters.com
I disagree with those who are suggesting that if an owner says you can stay on with them that’s fine and a solution to them breaking the agreement. Yes it means you don’t have to find alternative accommodation . However you have to live with the owner . Some sitters work from home during the sit , or are an introvert and find social interaction with others exhausting . Some HOs expect you to carry on with the pet care ( dog walking etc ) when they return early. There are so many scenarios where being expected to just stay on with the homeowner when they return early is not comfortable for a sitter. Imagine if a sitters said ( without being invited) I’ll just stay an extra few days with you . Most homeowners would be uncomfortable and feel this is intrusive . Yet some assume the sitter will be fine if they come back early.
If a sitter said to a host I’ll be arriving a day late / leaving a day early they can be suspended from the platform . If a host does it there’s no implications for them .
Having experience this twice early on in our house sitting experienced this is my advice . Don’t expect help from THS . They can’t prevent the HO from returning to their own home . What you can do is have a backup plan for each and every sit and write an honest review to warn future sitters .
https://forum.trustedhousesitters.com/t/home-owner-curtails-sit-by-coming-back-several-days-early
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It is possible that they always intended to arrive back ‘early’. There is talk of owners adding in a day to the end of the sit in case they are delayed back so that they still have a sitter providing cover. So if they actually make their original return date they just message to say they’re arriving back early. That they only gave you 2 hours notice sounds like this may be the case as they will be on their final flight or have even arrived at the airport.
You could stand your ground and let them know you will be staying until the correct date or that they need to cover accommodation but as you say they will take it out in the review.
You can pack and find a hotel for the night or head home early if possible and leave them a 1-star review (and I do mean 1, not 2 or 3 or 4 stars). This is egregious behaviour and they deserve to be marked down for it and other sitters need to be warned.
After you leave the review and they leave theirs contact THS and make a complaint. If you do so earlier they will leave a bad review after THS contact them about it THS will be of no use to you in resolving it now as they just run away from these sorts of problems and tell you to work it out yourself. They provide a get-out for the owner as they can claim an extraordinary circumstance and not need to provide evidence as you would with travel insurance so the actually foster this kind of problem.
Unfortunately the insurance, if you had it, wouldn’t have helped much here as it has a $150 a night limit and a $100 deductible.
Good luck I hope you are ok and safe.
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yes, just like @BJane said! A few troubles, because I had to work and with just 2 hours of advance we had to stop everything we were doing to clean the house and make it perfect for them. Is not like the house was a mess, but we always know that it takes time to clean a whole house, even when it has more than 1 floor.
They offered us to stay in the house, but in the basement. And even thought we have the whole floor for us, we had to work untill 9pm, we lost our day, and we had to work a few hours if their children running like crazy in the main floor ( where it makes A LOT OF NOISES ) in the basement. Besides that, we were woken at 6.50 am by noises again. That would need to be our first “bad” review in the THS, because it really disturbed us during a whole day and changed our plans to leave the house also.
@IHeartAnimals the thing about paying hotel or anything like that, is the platform doesn’t really care about the petsitters, since everything nowadays is going to work just for the owners, and if we complain, they might say we could leave the house if we feel disturbed
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@Luna2000 I know what you mean. I had 3 host cancellations on me within a 10mth span. For 2 of those I contacted membership services and they didn’t do anything and didn’t contact the hosts. THS can’t stop your host from coming home but they could contact them and remind them about the terms and conditions. If it were me, I would not want to stay in the basement while they were there. It would make me feel uncomfortable. For my completed sits, no hosts has come home early thank goodness but if one ever does, I will automatically give a negative review and dock at least 3 stars for breaking the confirmed sit date, disrupting my travel schedule, and if it’s M-F having to disrupt work and homeschool hours to clean the house to leave
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Well just to end the post, we decided to give them a 3 stars, because the sitting was perfect prior to their return and their noise disturbance.
Hope nobody has to go throught this! And if you do, you already know the post to talk about hahaha.
@IHeartAnimals hopefully we never had someone cancelling their sitting with us closer to the dates, but it’s always possible right? Be safe that and may the good HOs finds us!
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Yea, this is shiesty…If we are flying in from out of country or there is a chance there may be delays, we put a buffer day at the end of our sit but this is communicated before sit confirmation and the sitter isn’t kicked out if for us landing on time. And in th me event that our trip shortened, it is a discussion had with the HS, we don’t just kick them out.
If an HO did this to me and I could not easily adjust plans, I personally would expect them to figure something out and word my response to reflect that and basically ask, “what are the alternatives they’re providing to address the change or would it be better to escalate this as an issue to TH?”
I just ended a sit yesterday where HO came back two nights early, but I was more than welcome to stay for the remainder if I wanted to. I split the difference and stayed one night then left early to continue on to my next destination. Point is, I was given the choice, which is imo, bare minimum the decent thing to do, either that or they provide you with an alternative option or they find a place to crash for that night if there isn’t space in the home.
If this HO does end up putting you out like this, I would make sure to call it out in your review (if you continue with the sit)…imo, it’s poor form to do this and not offer an HS with an alternative. With a paid service, I can see how an adjustment like this would be fine but in this type of a reciprocal exchange, this type of behaviour comes across super entitled and inconsiderate to me.
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