Yep. Are we pet sitters or maids?
Yes, when leaving reviews for other commercial sites, I never give perfection ratings as there is always room for improvement.
Here at THS, there appears to be a tend of it has to be 5 star or something is severely wrong.
Seems very odd if I’m honest.
I am a sitter, and I read HO reviews carefully before applying, which sometimes has caused me to miss out on being able to apply while reading! If a HO had a 4 star or less, I would go into the reviews and see what the previous sitters had to complain about. It could be something that doesn’t bother me, or it could be something quite serious.
So far, I have always given 5 stars because all my sits have been great. Yes, sometimes I’ve had to do things which I would have prefer not to, for example, buy drain unblocker on the first day, but that’s not a reason to take stars out of a review. I have to buy that in my own home as well occasionally, and it is not a big deal!
What really puts me off from applying is when I see that the HO had unreasonable expectations from a sitter. For example, I read one recently where the HOs were accusing the sitter of stealing some medicines. Even if the sitter had reached out for a paracetamol while there, would that really matter? I avoid that kind of HO
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It concerns us all, as the same principle applies in both directions.
If I saw someone with 5% of all the reviews being four stars, I would read those and try to read between the lines. Likewise, I would read what the sitters said about the HO. I always try to read the last 5 if they have a lot of reviews. If they don’t have many, say less than 5, and one of the last ones wasn’t too good, I would politely decline.
If someone received 4 stars out of 5 for cleanliness, I wouldn’t worry much. I have never given 4 stars in the cleaning section, even when they’ve left dust on our bedside tables (in the room they slept in) or didn’t wash our sheets (just pulled them off the bed). I can’t expect a sitter to clean my home deep as if they were a maid or leave it pristine. I certainly appreciate it when they do, and I make sure to mention it in my review, but I will not hold it against them if they don’t have time to wash my sheets. I have never found my home in awful shape either, or with bad smells, so I feel like I’ve never had to give anything lower than 5.
The main thing for me is finding a happy, healthy dog and not being surprised with broken items that would require me to spend money to fix (broken appliances or anything hazardous).
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I’m still a newbie but I was thinking the same thing. 4 stars in my mind is still very good. I would only worry at maybe 3 stars. 4 or 5 or kind of equal to me.
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Stealing medicines, like prescription types? If that were the case, that would be noteworthy, because some people do steal such to get high or resell on the black market, as with prescription painkillers. That would be different from taking a couple of Tylenol or Panadol.
There were reviews in 2013 because I recall asking for one and getting one line of words. It was there but not so important or noticeable, maybe.
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