I’m fairly new, snd have had good experience with sitters on the platform.
Apologies if this is inappropriate. I just recently I had an application from a sitter I know from last year (off platform sit , a neighborhood list recommendation).
I promptly declined… I had a bad experience, though she has 5 stars here.
She ate all (5 jars!) of the home made pickles in my fridge plus 4 qts of blackberries I’d frozen. She had noisy visitors frequently, overnight visitors at least once and parked in the neighbors drive regularly. Dead patio plants and not very clean house. You get the picture.
The very worst was my neighbor said my cat slept outside for two weeks.
I found out about most of this afterwards, and was so upset I didn’t confront her.
Chalked it up to experience, moved on (to here!)
I hope she’s improved and don’t think there is any value to messaging her on this platform, but got triggered this am when I saw the request.
Any thoughts?
She doesn’t sound like a 5 star sitter to me! If it makes you feel better, you could reply to her, stating the reasons, factually and unemotionally, or you could just move on. Up to you what you want to do.
As tempting as it might be to tell her what you thought, maybe better to just move on and don’t waste any more emotional energy on her. She’s already upset you previously, and you can’t leave her a review here, so, I’d probably try to resist having a last word and dredging up your frustration again. If she’s “that kind of sitter”, eventually she’ll pull the same stunt on someone here and they’ll write her the bad review.
She applied to your sit again because she loved those 5 jars of homemade pickles and blackberries.
Seriously though, you mentioned knowing this sitter from another platform? In this other platform, were you able to or did you give an honest and factual review of this sitter?
If you stated the things you mentioned here in your post in a review for her, it would seem odd that this sitter would re-apply to your sit.
Thanks for your response.
She had either listed on our greater neighborhood FB page or neighborhood Nextdoor and I got in touch.
She had one local reference who in retrospect I think was the friend she was staying with…a bit too effusive.
I messaged several other people who I could see had contacted her re cat sitting, but at that time no one had had her at their house.
Subsequently two of those folks got in touch to ask me for feedback and I was clear the reasons I wouldn’t invite her back.
I didn’t feel writing something on either FB or Nextdoor was appropriate and didn’t want to get into a food fight.
And yes, the pickles were good!
The fact that she didnt have any insight to begin with that the things she did were …well, inappropriate/just wrong tells me that you may be wasting your breath. ? just a thought
That’s something I’m still trying to wrap my head around…
It’s good context though, as she said she’s been cat sitting for year and certainly hasn’t a years worth of reviews.
Wow. I’m surprised she has 5 stars on THS. Sorry you had such a negative encounter.
I’d only get into your feelings from the last sit if you want to open a dialog with her. If not, I’d decline her application so she is not taking up the 5 slots you have for applications.
Also, I’d be clear in your Welcome Guide what food is off-limits (even though I would never eat 4 jars of homemade pickles!), your expectations on cat care (e.g. make sure cat is in house every day before dark), and what cleaning you’d like done before return (e.g., please bring out your trash and put any dishes in dishwasher before leaving) or address on the video call before confirming the sit. We’re sitters and always clean up after ourselves and often leave the house cleaner than when we got there. However, not everyone does this sadly. The nice thing is that you get to rate sitters on cleanliness so hopefully this has improved.
I hope you have some other great applications for sitters with lots of 5 star reviews.
Just a note to say that my current host is so amazing–in Colorado Springs, CO. She has a quadrad of very energetic doggies! Lots of work indeed. Still, it’s so much fun to apply good training techniques that I picked up out east…and brought here…hopefully we can get some good business activity going here, with the grace of those who already train well in this area of course!
She was kind enough to provide me with some food while I’m here, and I asked for some of the questionable food along the way. It’s both of us for the first time, so I’m grateful for her lentils especially so I could work out a new recipe that I encountered in Vermont!
Best wishes everyone and I’m glad to be a part of this community.
