I’ve been experiencing a growing number of HOs that are intentionally leaving their homes very dirty/dusty, esp the common spaces, and had to abandon 3 sits due to unlivebable filth/hoarding/clutter/pest infestations (cockroches, mice, bedbugs, fruit flies, etc). Are you expecting the sitter to clean your homes? Just curious. There have only been 2 sits where the home is as clean as I keep my own home and I did not have to clean the home before I felt I could even bring my belongings inside.
We have only experienced two out of thirty that were less than ideal and reviewed them accordingly.
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We haven’t had any nasty surprises. A few weren’t as clean as our own home but those hosts didn’t live like we did, they had multi animals, lots of “stuff” and we knew the homes were “lived in” so we cleaned the extra bits that made us twitch and then all was good. Are you doing video calls &/or home tours before you accept the sits @elysium009? #addtothelist
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We only had one nasty surprise in over 40 sits. A handful of ‘clean enough, effort made’ and the rest was very clean. I count ourselves lucky, but we also scrutinise sits - as far as possible.
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What country / city is this in @elysium009?
Are they all new to THS?
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I’ve had 2 houses over 3 years that were awful. Both had cleaners and yet the houses were dirty.
People are busy, rushing to get to the airport and they just don’t care.
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You hit the nail on the head “they just don’t care”.
Organised people who value their sitters can and do make the effort to present their home in a clean and tidy way for their sitter’s arrival.
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Oh my goodness. I start cleaning out drawers, closets, cabinets, etc weeks before a sit (joining THS has made our home very organized! LOL) And I have our home professionally cleaned and we bathe our dogs before every sit.
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I’ve had one dirty sit out of 24, and that one was an early sit that taught me to look for signs of cleanliness. It wasn’t anywhere as bad as sits you’ve described.
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Definitely clean much more in preparation for my sitters. It feels good to de clutter and deep clean.
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I used to start my cleaning/organizing for a sit weeks in advance. I’ve now got it down to about a week - it takes so long because I’m doing it around my work schedule, but I launder pretty much everything that can go in a washer, I move all my furniture to make sure there aren’t dust bunnies lurking against the walls, I move as much of my clothes not going with me into other suitcases to clear closet space. So no, I absolutely don’t expect sitters to clean for me.
I do wonder - what are the profiles like for homes that have ‘unlivebable filth/hoarding/clutter/pest infestations’. You can’t see bugs in a photo, but hoarding doesn’t happen overnight. Do the photos look tidy?
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I would guess only about 1/4 of our hosts have cleared out any space for our clothes or food (USA).
I was just talking about making sure things are cleaned and organized but I definitely clean out the fridge, freezer and pantry and leave plenty of room in closets and empty out a few dresser drawers too!
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I work so hard to clean our house before sits. It takes days leading up to it. Honestly it’s so stressful to do on top of leaving on vacation with our family. It takes me 24 hours to recover.
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I always let our hosts know that we do not need space in their dresser drawers and only a few items need to hang in the closet. You might want to ask your sitters before you empty out your dresser.
I love a clean fridge, but I also let the host know about a week before their vacation that we are happy to use up any produce, dairy, eggs, etc that will expire during their vacation, so the host does not need to throw away perfectly good food.
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I’m sorry to hear this @elysium009
It won’t take long to find forum discussions which discuss cleanliness expectations whilst on sits, but I’m glad to see that what you describe does seem to be the exception with most people in this discussion.
There are hundreds and hundreds of sits taking place every single day, and overwhelmingly THS members are having fantastic, life-changing experiences for both sitters and pet parents, not too many of those are shared on forums.
Having said that, we will always look for ways to improve and make it an even rarer experience for everyone.
I’ll also share a snippet from this link which I think succinctly highlights the mutual exchange which is central to Trusted Housesitters;
“Pet parents must make sure that sitters are welcomed into a clean, comfortable, and secure home. Sitters are then responsible for caring for the home during the sit, ensuring that the pet parents return to a clean and tidy home too.”
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It’s an easy task to clean out the space and we have a fridge in our garage that we move food items too - no waste here but thanks for the suggestions.
This is in Virginia US. There were 3 that were really bad/unliveable. Two were was HOs and sitters – both hoarder homes with mispresented photos, I was only there 20 min (cockroach infestation) and the other 6 hrs (extreme hoarder home, rooms with no door half full of trash etc) before getting asthma attacks from all the dust/filth. The most recent one that ws the worst with a mouse infestation was a single woman with cats that approached me in the road on another sit, wanted me to sit without THS, apparently the landlord of the tenant I was sitting for, who’s home was older and several maintenances issues but very clean, newish appliances, and the guest basement area was renovated. In retrospect, all three had some mental health issues; esp the last one who I believe was an alcoholic.
Yes I do for most of them. Now will be doing it for all of them. I’m realizing sits without photos of the front and yard are red flags, and to really look at the background for clutter/dirty walls/floors/ungroomed yards and dogs.
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Yes! one even had cleaners come but it was still so dirty!! Even the cleaner was cussing at the HO for leaving such a filthy fridge. Her drawers were full of crumbs and the yard was LITTERED with feces and garden debris. Her neighbors were complaining too about the mess and that her dogs were not friendly, and the women never said hello. However, she was at first very friendly with me, we had tea, our dogs, played, thought I did everything right until she started blaming me for her moldy/clogged washing machine flooding from her systemic black mold issue that landed me in the ER with pneumonia, asthma attacks, and seizures.
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