Hello @KC1102 and welcome to the forum… we hope you enjoy connecting with the community! It does seem like the trend is to wash and leave as you found it! Thank you for joining in the conversation!
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When I petsit I always ask the HO what they prefer. Depending on their response I either wash, dry and replace sheets and towels or just bundle them up in the laundry room.
When someone sits at my house, I tell them that I don’t care if they wash the sheets but do like it if they take them off and put them in the hamper then make the bed with sheets from the linen closet. I’ve never had an issue about it. Same with the towels.
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I think it’s the least of your worries. Is your home safe and secure? Are your animals well and happy? That’s enough for me. Washing a few sheets is a ten minute job.
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Someone with the same priorities as I have and I’m a sitter. I suppose different people stress about different things.
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It is a worry when it is listed on my directions and is ignored. It is not a 10 minute job to remove sheets, wash and re-make the bed. After you come home from a long trip, it’s the last thing you want to do…I understand keeping animals happy is the most important, but also remember, sitters are getting the opportunity to stay in a new City, with the chance to visit new things…all without paying for a hotel. We leave a welcome basket full of food, wine, highlights of the City so they can explore and I don’t ask a great deal of the sitters other than to take care of our baby and leave the house the way they found it…which includes clean linens and towels.
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I like to ask the HO what they want me to do with the bed. I bring my own towel so I don’t dirty theirs but if I had to use theirs I would wash and dry the towels.
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To avoid stress as well for the sitters as for myself I simply purchased extra pillows and blankets for guests. So when there’s no time for the sitter to wash and dry them it’s no big deal, because I am not going to use them anyway for ourselves. I have all the time in the world to wash later.
The only thing I ask is to strip the linens and put them in the laundry bin.
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@long1016 while i liked your post on this subject (especially the bit about leaving a welcome basket of food and wine etc…when did you say you are going away again?) you might have seen in previous discussions that its not always possible for a sitter to wash, dry and make up a bed if they are needing to get away early from a sit. I assume you leave a second set of sheets, pillow slips, duvet cover for then to make up the bed so yes that would work but putting the used stuff through the wash and dried with an early away is another matter and I know that most sitters would want to do this but its not that simple especially for those arriving and leaving by public transport with sits back to back. Some HOs only have one set of bedding and/or they have no logical system as to where spare sets might be found; I once found spare sheets etc in a cupboard along with kitchenware! I think HOs need to be very clear when they are locking in a sitter as to how they want this issue dealt with and if they are not then the sitter needs to pin them down. Some HOs as you will see from comments made elsewhere just want the bed left as is, others want it stripped and the used stuff left in the bedroom. others want the bed stripped and used stuff left in the laundry, others as in your case want the bed made up fresh and that is more than reasonable so long as the converstaion has been had and time or a second set of bedding and its whereabouts is provided to the sitter.
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Thank you @carpediem for another sensible and common sense response.
What amazes me is how long some washing and drying programmes take. I have just returned from a sitting where, as usual, I asked the HO what she would like me to do with the bedding. We had the guest room. She said, just strip the bed and leave the bedding either in the room or in the utility area which I did.
I do like to launder towels the day before so I put the dog towels in to wash on an eco programme. That took 3 hours 45 mins. I put them outside to dry. I then put in our bath towels and tea towels and found a shorter programme which still took nearly 2 hours. With no time to put these outside to dry I used the tumble dryer which I hate. I selected a normal dry programme. It was still drying 4 hours later and at 10pm I manually stopped the programme and hung them up inside. They were still damp next morning.
I never leave the house with these machines running so thank goodness we only had dog-walking planned for our penultimate day.
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@Itchyfeet yes some of those programs go on forever chewing up power and ending up with soggy clothes anyway! I like the fact that you take the time to put dog bedding through…I do that and its a nice thing to do for your best mate before you leave! Happy travels.
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This is exactly the reason why I would never ask the HS to wash and dry everything before leaving.
These eco programs take up so much time and even (what is possible with my washing machine) when you use the short program, it still needs 1h to wash, at least 2hrs to dry for each load. So when would the HS need to get up to have these chores all done if he/she needs to leave early?
Two sets of sheets or, like in my case, even extra sets of pillows and blankets only for guests can make life so much easier.
When I come back from a holiday I have so much washing to do anyway it simply doesn’t matter if I need to wash a few more towels and sheets.
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Most of our sitters don’t leave until late in the day unless they are traveling quite a distance to the next sit. If they were leaving in the a.m., of course I would not ask this to be done…but when you spend the day at the house or going out to visit more local sites before you head to your next sit, it is not asking too much to have the guest room back to it’s original state.
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My last sit had a small, apartment-sized washer and dryer. It took many loads (and hours) to wash two sets of sheets and numerous towels.
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With us it really depends on when WE get back from a holiday. We often travel to African countries and all the flights returning to Germany arrive very early in the morning and we will be home by 6 AM. There’s no way to do any chores on the HS side unless we would expect them to do them the day before (…using no more towels and sleeping on the floor afterwards?…
) or when we are already back? Both aren’t any options we would want.
Same thing might also occur the other way round. When we have to leave very early and don’t have the time to dry towels and put them in the laundry I might ask the sitter to throw them in the machine when they do some washing for themselves.
It’s a give and take, isn’t it? And once again, it’s nothing you couldn’t talk and agree upon beforehand.
My last sitter said just leave everything when you go (bedding and towels) and I will wash and dry it for you. It can also work the other way around. I would never expect it but if it makes sense I also wouldn’t decline the offer.
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I really like your reasonable, flexible attitude, @anon39388349. We’d sit for you in a heartbeat 
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Thank you so much 
and you’d be very welcome to do a sit for us.
It comes with my job description to be flexible (flight attendant)…
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@long1016 no of course its not to much to ask and we are not in disagreement on that.
@anon39388349 i guess the other thing is (and if I was a HO) coming back off holiday with a whole lot of washing to do, the last thing i would want to deal with is a load of wet or half dry washing left in the machine because the sitter had to leave and the cycle was not finished; and i had to run it through again because my flight was delayed or i was stuck in traffic somewhere! Certainly if it can be done and the HO has asked for it to be done, then I think most sitters would have absolutely no issues with that. I certainly don’t
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For me as a HO it’s no big deal to wash used towels and linen, because the washing machine is going to run anyway several times when I get back. It’s the machines that do the work, not me, actually
But as I said I have extra pillows and blankets for guests so the HS really doesn’t have to do more than put one fresh fitted sheet on the bed and the rest depends on the time we get back or he/she has to leave.
If anybody wants to get up at 3 in the morning to have everything washed and dried it’s his/her choice.
If I find wet linens in the machine I take them out and put them in the dryer…this takes less than a minute and I really don’t see any problem with this.
I agree that it should be done if asked, which I would not do😉
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@Françoise-et-Youn NEVER leave a tumble dryer running when you leave a house!!
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