You’re complaining about additional water usage and laundry? Honestly, that sounds petty considering she just underwent surgery. Despite everything, she still tried to continue the sit as long as possible. If you need contractual security, you might want to consider hiring a professional pet sitter instead of relying on THS.
I understand that you’re frustrated, but a bit of empathy for your sitter would be appropriate here.
Major surgery and anestesia take time to recover from, physically and mentally.
I don’t think anyone can really bounce back that fast. Everything is sore, energy level low. Even psychologically, it’s still a surgical operation completely out of the blue, she must feel vulnerable. The thought of taking care of someone else’s pets and house, not to mention the final cleaning, must have felt daunting to her.
I’m sorry for you and the sitter. It’s unfortunate when emergencies like this happen but this is life so they do happen. Luckily, chances are low that you’ll be in this exact situation again for future sits.
The Good:
-Your dog is safe and alive
-Sitter is safe and alive
-You are back home
I’m sure she felt unable in the end and we have spoken. Ill credit her with having allowed us to reorganize.
She’s on her way back.home and the pets are being taken care of until we’re able to return.
Thank you. We’ve spoken, she’s ok and on her way home
Weve reorganized in the time she was able to stay
Our housekeeper is staying with the pets until we’re able to fly back home.
It was just an unfortunate situation for all.
@Val_Sco This must have been super stressful for both of you. Our family ran into a couple emergencies over the last 2 years of pet-sitting. Once I had really bad series of vertigo during a dogsit and recently, we were in Malaysia and the day before we were supposed to fly to Australia for a new dogsit, my husband had to have emergency kidney stone removal surgery. Holy cow was I stressed out. Luckily we were able to split up as a family on both situations and carry out the petsits as planned. I lost a lot of sleep when my 3 kids were young as they are all 18months apart, but at these moments, I felt so lucky that they were older and could help me. Fingers crossed that you never have an emergency like this on your future petsit dates.
Thank you for understanding the stress we were all going through. We are still away but have fortunately been able to reorganize the pets with friends and our housekeeper. Our priority was also keeping them safe until we’re able to get back home. There have been other emergency situations with past sitters, but nothing like this. Its hard to even fathom! She did her best but I think in the end, despite everything, she was too stressed to continue.
@Val_Sco, really sorry to hear of your situation. Seems sitter looked after your property and pets for six, out of eight weeks. After emergency surgery, they returned to housesit; arranged help; tried to fulfil sit; then gave reasonable notice. In our view, as full-time housesitters, this housesitter deserves a gold medal for exemplary conduct.
In the real world, their health (emergency surgery!) is fundamentally more important than volunteering as housesitters.
During 2024, we had two Pet Parents cancel international housesits on the first day of housesit. By sheer necessity, we adapted and progressed alternative plans. Alas stuff happens.
Glad to hear that you are now Premium THS members. Given two month housesit duration and reference to prior housesits then likely upgrade cost is likely a rounding error in scheme of things. “No offer was made to contribute” - really? Suggest take a deep breath and reflect on this attitude. In same situation, suspect we’ve have used language stronger than “insensitive”.
Thank you for your feedback. We did sort out backup plans as needed.
Thank you for your feedback.
For you information, I do have a cleaning person who also help our sitter during her convalescence. In fact, she is now staying at our home with our cat until we’re able to return, our dog is with friends. The point is I prefer meeting and greeting our sitters personally and explaining feedings, medicine etc for the pets. Of course I could have accepted a new sitter and I appreciated their offer to help.
Thank you for your feedback.
Without knowing the entire story and all that has transpired, it’s easy to judge. Our sitter and I have spoken and neither of us harbor ill feelings towards the other. It didn’t work out but not because she didn’t have help. It was stressing for everyone, her especially and in the end, she felt unable to continue. No one could have been prepared for a situation like this one and hopefully none of you will ever experience it.
Your sitter needed emergency surgery, and that’s where the story ends looking at most of the comments on here.
Yet you created this thread.
Thank you again for engaging and offering insight.
Hi @Val_Sco
Thank you for popping back to engage with our members, it’s good to hear that you were able to speak with your sitter directly, and make sure there were no hard feelings.
I can imagine that the situation has been a learning curve for you, and I hope that the experience, along with the insights from our members here, arms you with more knowledge should something like this happen again although as others have said, the chances are low this will happen again.
Jenny
It sounds like she had an extraordinary reason for ending the sit. I understand you’re not crazy about the extra expense involved in trying to help her – the extra laundry, cleaning, hiring a dogwalker, etc. However, these were things you chose to do. It doesn’t come off well to expect her to pay for that now. You have two weeks left. If you get a THS sitter there is a lot you can do in terms of remote handovers. If you had premium that would help you with a paid sitter.
Trusted Housesitters is a matching site. It is not a service. Even paid sites like Rover use independent contractors. The only “guarranttee” of service you might have would come from a service that sends sitters and offers emergency coverage. Those businesses charge a premium and aren’t available in all communities. In this case however, maybe that is where you should go.
To answer your question: No, this hasn’t happened to me. But sits get cancelled because of illness all the time. This happenes to sitters and this happens to homeowners.
Hi Val,
Do you know anyone other than the sitter who has actually had an appendectomy?
Yes, several people including my sister and a friend.
Glad your backup is working.
No doubt this has caused stress for you, but clearly getting emergency surgery wasn’t something your sitter could’ve avoided. The fact that your sitter went to lengths to continue the sit should elicit appreciation, along with empathy for her facing such circumstances.
In your place, I’d write a generous review of her and avoid the complaints you’ve mentioned here. That’s because you’d look unfeeling and entitled, and that would potentially hurt your chances of getting the best of sitters in the future.
She was actually right (in my opinion)!
Your lens is clearly focussed entirely on your own needs, rather than appreciating the wider situation. Your sitter - and her family, who graciously stepped in to help facilitate continuation of your sit - should be applauded, and yet you are maligning them?
What a shame that you can’t feel some empathy and appreciation for her exemplary commitment, in such very challenging personal circumstances.
Hi @Val_Sco ,
I guess you wrote your post looking for some advice. Given that you have already sorted out the care of your pets, in my opinion, this is the best advice you can get.
Just yesterday I didn’t apply to a great looking sit, low maintenance cat and great location with great views because of the last review the HO wrote. It was a 5 star review but the wording transpired unfair expectations and lack of appreciation for the sitters. The reviews they had were all great 5star reviews but the way they wrote their review was enough to discourage me.
I am sorry you went through such a stressful situation but it was just something unfortunate, nobody’s fault. The sitter got the worst part but it is just natural, it was her appendix, your part was the care of your home and pets, which is your responsibility anyway. Unfortunately, this happened at an inconvenient time.