I left a box of jewelry valued at about $1000 at our last international pet sit. The homeowner ignored my immediate text the day of departure. THS finally confirmed for me the homeowner has my jewelry 6 weeks later. She has insisted a courier pick up the small jewelry box and wants them to package it for shipping. She claims she has no packing materials at home. She is providing one 5 hour windows of availability to be home for the courier. I cannot find a company that will package on site nor commit to such a small window of time. I have also asked her to send me a photo of the contents of the box for insurance purposes but she has not. From my perspective this is not in the spirit of the THS Code of Conduct. Suggestions/advise or how THS can possibly help?
It’s really not at all in the spirit but it also doesn’t violate anything other than some pretty bad karma coming for them on the HOs side.
Not sure where this HO is based but if you are part of any travel networks or expat groups, you may be able to ask if they have suggestions or join one local to that area on and ask or even if a Good Samaritan is close by and would be willing to help you out. (But preferably the former!).
I’m in a travel group that is closed network and this is the kind of question I would pose. If someone was close enough, I have no doubt they would help me out.
You could also see if there is a “task rabbit” equivalent that could do this for you as this is a suitable task I could imagine someone posting.
You could also contact some Jewelers and ask them for suggestions on how to handle this situation. I’m sure they would have had to deal with something similar in terms of moving sensitive items via courier especially for high end clientele.
@claudinekent - It sounds like you have put yourself in a difficult situation. Not sure there’s an easy solution. The HO is maybe being difficult but they shouldn’t be in that situation. Not sure how much THS can help in this situation. You’re going to have to find a solution unfortunately.
Lastly can I suggest not taking expensive items with you on sits in future.
It’s odd that they are responding like that. Did the petsit go well? Maybe they are holding a grudge or something. I’m not sure if THS will be able to force them to be more cooperative but perhaps if you could tell us exactly where this location is, there might be a member here who is close by who could assist you.
We once left behind a bag in a hotel in a foreign country, and we only knew one person that we could contact to help us. He could not help us directly, but he knew someone who would help us.
We paid the friend, and she took the bag to DHL and got it packaged and shipped. Nothing went missing!
There are good people in this world!
There may be freight companies who do the packaging but it will be $$$ and not you standard post office. I once left my phone at an airport across the country and had to use a specialist carrier who was able to ship phones (most wouldn’t because of the battery) and they did the wrapping after they picked it up etc but it cost like $80 just for sending a phone.
@claudinekent that is a real pickle. Tell us which country and state - maybe one of us can help, or knows someone who might be able to help. I know if it was close to me, I’d pick it up for you and have the couriers pick it up from me, no problem.
between us all@claudinekent @botvot @Cuttlefish Count me in. If it is my area, I will pick it up for you.
Maybe it is a good idea to post this as a question here on the forum?
“Who is able to pick up a package for me and send it home”?
@claudinekent it would help to know which country you left the item .
There is a website that I have used - where couriers compete to quote for your job.
I have used it regularly in the U.K. and if you wait a day or two the quotes come down in price and it has been affordable and reliable .You can specify your requirements. It does provide an international service but I haven’t used it for that so can’t comment on that aspect.
You could also order the required packaging and send it to the HO by Amazon . Apologising for the inconvenience caused and express your appreciation that the HO has offered to wait in for the courier (which will taking up 5 hours of their time ) this may go some way to calming the situation with the HO.
You left your belongings at her home, it’s got nothing to do with code of conduct or the spirit of THS. The fact it has a high price tag isn’t her fault. I understand why she doesn’t want to package your jewellery just incase anything gets broken in transit & she has no idea whether she would be held liable.
Why don’t you offer to have some packaging delivered to her? Or alternatively depending on the location, DHL used to package items when they collected, I’m pretty sure they still do that, and they are international.
If you have an American Express card…they are sometimes helpful in these odd situations…
@claudinekent What would you do if you had left it behind a hotel where you had been a paying guest ?
It’s likely that a hotel would also have suggested they return it to you via a courier with insurance to cover the value of the jewellery and its quite likely that in addition to courier costs they would also have charged you for the time and trouble to package it and return it to you .
This sounds to me like another owner that sees sitters as cheap (unpaid) staff. They don’t need your free services anymore so you’re just a bother to them not a human being.
Unfortunately not much you can do as the more you try and get them to be helpful the more annoyed they will become.
I’ve used parcelmonkey to arrange courier collections in multiple countries. Sometimes you get lucky and find one that supplies a label but having one that will package as well may be a bit of a stretch.
If you are in the US you may be able to get them to stop at a UPS and have them box it up and print a label that you have prepaid for. I’ve been able to do that before as they seem to be everywhere.
Another option may be some other interest group you are involved in that may have international or countrywide members where one in the area may be willing to go collect it and then help ship it back to you?
I hope you manage to get it shipped back and double-hope you get it done in time to leave a review for the next potential sitter.
@HappyDeb Just to offer a completely opposite attitude, if I were the Owner, I would be happy to carefully package the items and get them mailed securely to the Sitter who accidentally left them. I would only ask for reimbursement for the mailing service.
Kindness goes a long way in this world.
I seem to remember there was bad blood with this sit, referenced on another thread. So that might be part of the problem.
If it were me, I’d hope to handle things without unnecessary drama and complications, no matter whether I was the sitter or host. To me, THS should be enjoyable and worthwhile for both parties or it’s not worth prolonging. And you can’t control other people. So if it were my jewelry, I’d arrange to get it back even if I had to find someone to pick it up, pack it and get it back to me ASAP. But I wouldn’t bring expensive or sentimental jewelry with me while traveling.
RE: what Maggie8K said about a minimum of drama and drawing this out, I’d prepare the packaging for the HO and attach the paid insurance and postage etc. Make it as easy as possible.
As a homeowner I would as well. I left a pair of glasses one other time and the homeowner happily packaged and mailed it to my next pet sit for me. Unfortunately, it was France and did not arrive during my next two week pet sit. Thus those homeowners kindly mailed to the states for me.
Do you mean mail her packing materials? I could mail her a Fedex box. Had not that of that idea. Thank you!