I’m new to Trusted Housesitters and recently booked my first sitter, to care for my kitten from Aug in my home in South Florida.
We met on video chat, confirmed all details, and she assured me she’d be available the entire time. She reiterated her plans to arrive the morning of the sit start date and accepted my home rules, including that no guests were allowed.
A few days before the sit, the sitter said her phone had water damage and she was using her laptop to message me until it could be repaired. She still confirmed everything was on track and said she’d arrive that morning. After I left for my trip, she told me via laptop message that she had arrived, played with (kittens name) and couldn’t send photos yet because her phone was being repaired.
Later that day, I received a Ring notification showing two strangers entering my home using the code I’d given her. When I spoke to them, they explained they were hired by the sitter via Rover to visit “her cat” (she even gave them a different name for my kitten).
The sitter never informed me she would not be there in person, nor that she would give a third party access to my home and pet. I have screenshots from both my own conversations with her and those provided by the Rover sitters, confirming this arrangement.
I’ve now secured my home and arranged for a trusted friend to care for my kitten. While I’ve heard many great stories about the Trusted Housesitters community, this being my very first experience has left me extremely shaken and unsure if I can trust the platform in the future. It has been genuinely traumatizing to deal with at the start of my trip.
I’d also appreciate advice on how to prevent this in the future. She only revealed she couldn’t arrive until the morning of my departure, and my home doesn’t have a guest room or extra bed for someone to stay the night before. How do other members handle situations where the sitter might need to arrive early and get a hotel?
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This all sounds very strange to me. Why would a THS sitter, who doesn’t receive payment as it’s on a mutual exchange basis, hire sitters from Rover? She would have to have paid those people…..I really don’t understand how this could happen.
As for how you can prevent this, I always request a handover in person with the owner, particularly if a dog. I can only think of one sit with cats where it wasn’t possible to do a handover at the beginning but I did at the end.
Did the sitter you chose have lots of 5 star reviews? Were any reviews missing?
My only interpretation of this oddity is that the sitter knew in advance they couldn’t do the exact dates you wanted and so covered the initial date with paid sitters- quite a clever getaround but quite wrong of course.
Definitely open a member DISPUTE and put that subject line title in the email to THS support.
This is appalling, I am so sorry that this happened to you, what a deceitful person. This should never, under any circumstances, have happened. To allow total strangers into your home is an extreme violation of the THS guidelines. Have you reported her to THS immediately and raise a member dispute.
In order to prevent it happening again it needs to be a personal one-to-one hand over. If you only have one bedroom then yes, this may be difficult, but not impossible. You could, for instance arrange your departure as late in the day as possible to allow a sitter to arrive before you leave, you could possibly arrange for the sitter, or yourself, to stay with a friend, or you could offer to pay for their accommodation the previous night after meeting them in person at your home. Personally, if you had a comfortable enough sofa I would be happy to sleep on it for one night but I am very easy going, I am not sure if other sitters would do this.
Unfortunately there is no way to guard against all eventualities but hopefully this will be your first and last bad experience. I sometimes am so ashamed of the behavior that I read of but I can assure you that there are plenty of good sitters out there.
Did you formally cancel the sitting or is it still running as live in your Dashboard?
If the latter, you can leave a full factual review of her when the sitting formally ends (you can leave a review the day after the sit ends) which will alert future HOs.
Meanwhile good luck with your Member Dispute which @BonnyinBrighton suggests.
I prefer to meet all of our per owners in person before the start of the sit. Sometimes the place/timing doesn’t work out for that, of course. If it’s cats, it doesn’t matter so much. But for a dog, we stay in nearby lodging the night before so we can meet up that previous day. We don’t expect the pet owner to pay for our lodging.
@Olivia412 the sitter giving a third party stranger access to your home is completely out of order! Here is the urgent support number to call and raise a member dispute against this sitter. Say exactly - you want to raise a member dispute. This sitter needs to be removed from the platform. Submit all messages you have and footage from your ring camera. In the meantime change all door locks and door codes for your safety and security.
@Olivia412, welcome to THS Forum. What an extraordinary situation. We have never even heard of the concept of a THS housesitter hiring a Rover/other person to perform their housesit duties. Very odd indeed.
I would have called the police and reported two unauthorized people at your home. Have them investigate first sitter for possible part of a burglary ring. They gave you the wrong cat name because taking care of the cat was not important to her and probably gave the two people no name. Why would two people come and not one. Is one looking around the house. Sometimes I read things on here and wonder if they are real stories as they sound so left field. You seem calm about this. You did not say you immediately called the urgent line at THS or Rover. She would have had to tell Rover she is the homeowner and pet parent. Does Rover now have your house and her picture public. Not sure how it works but you need to inform both THS and ROVER.
I don’t do blind handovers. If I’m leaving early in the morning (most sits) I make it clear the sitter must be in my city and available for an in-person handover the night before. I have a very small place/no guest room and I offer to host - I give them my bedroom and I sleep on the couch. About half have taken me up on it. Sometimes they are already on another sit, or prefer to get their own accommodations in another part of the city for a few nights beforehand.
Just when you think you have read the most bizarre story possible, something comes along to out-bizarre it!
I’m slightly confused about why the sitter would pay another sitter to do a job which they are not getting paid for themselves?
Is it that they were running late and paid for a morning visit to give them time to get there?
If so, although they made a big mistake, you have to give them some credit for trying to solve the problem. They did book a sitter through a reputable agency, and I presume their thinking was that you don’t know them, so what’s the difference?
This was not their call to make. The right thing would have been to discuss the situation with you.
Was the THS sitter very young? It seems such an ill-thought-out plan, which was always going to blow up in their faces.
I do, however, have a teeny tiny bit of sympathy with the sitters. They tried to resolve the problem, but got it hopelessly wrong - I’m guessing that had they just owned up about their late arrival, the home host may have been annoyed but could have arranged short-term cover, and the issue would have been sorted with no harm done.
Hi @Olivia412 Really sorry this has happened to you. It’s most likely a sitter trying to be clever and covering dates they weren’t really available for, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. The situation also has the potential to be something more serious/fraudulent. Deliberately allowing access to two third-parties, presumably not even personal aquaintances of your original sitter - just not on.
If you decide to use THS again, it’s worth bearing in mind that you’re not trusting ‘the platform’. You’re trusting the individual. Despite the fluffy marketing, we sitters are not vetted beyond ensuring that we don’t (yet) have a criminal record. Read reviews carefully, ie. between the lines, meet via a video call, and trust your gut instinct when it comes to confirming a sitter.
Maybe because they wanted to complete the sit (for accomodation) and it was worth it to them paying Rover for a visit. What we don’t know is how many total visits the sitter had booked with Rover…
What’s crazy is that if OP didn’t have a doorbell camera she’d be none the wiser. Hopefully it was just a poor decision by the sitter, not something more sinister. Was the camera disclosed in the listing? That would make it seem less sinister, as the sitter would likely be found out, but still really dumb.
This is sneaky and agree with others you should dispute.
I’ve had about 17 distinct sitters, a few repeats, and never had this happen! I also sit and am appalled.
I’m not sure what you can do or need to do to prevent this, as I don’t think it’s likely to reoccur, but I would make sure sitters are aware of the ring camera, and the need for them to text you a quick arrival message including a photo of the cat.
I would also TELL sitters about this on the chat. Make it clear that you don’t think they’d do it, but that it really threw you, so they understand where you are coming from and that you probably would be checking the alert on the ring when they arrive. You might be able to gauge from there. You could ask, “What would you do if you got delayed and weren’t going to be able to come for the first day?”
In the best case reading, the sitter had some real emergency, and was trying to be “self-reliant” in solving a problem, but it is very, very poor judgement. And that’s the best case reading.
The sitter did have all 5 star reviews when we confirmed, and even up to the time of the visit. She didn’t have a lot of reviews, but since this was also my first time listing I was understanding of that because I also had no reviews.
I completely agree, my guess is that she couldn’t arrive when we agreed on and felt that she could get away with using rover until she would arrive instead of communicating directly with me the issue. I have opened a member dispute and am communicating with THS member support via email.
I have not formally cancelled the sit, it seems that is not possible in the platform once the sit has “started".” I have communicated with support that if she is not removed from the THS that I would like the ability to leave an honest review at the very least to warn other HOs.
My pet is a cat, a kitten actually, but yes I suppose going forward I will always ensure that any sitters that are not local to meet me are able to arrive in time to do a in person handoff. This was quite shocking and has me hesitant on using the site for future trips. I was so excited when I found it at the entire concept and community, but am feeling very discouraged now.
Thank you so much! I have already been in contact with their support team and have sent them all of the screenshots and as much as possible. Hopefully they can prevent this from happening to anyone else.
Thank you! This is exactly what I did. My immediate goal was finding alternative care for my kitten and securing my home, but once that was solved and I had a moment to calm down emotionally I contacted support to raise a member dispute.
My immediate reaction was the same, however from watching them enter on the Ring footage I had a feeling that they did not have bad intentions and often times police complicate these situations more than what is needed. I instead called my parents who live close by, but luckily before they arrived to my home I was able to speak with the people from Rover while they were leaving who have been texting me ever since as they are also in shock at this entire situation. I am not nearly as calm about this as I may seem, but I try my best to keep my calm in these stressful situations as panicking never helps in finding solutions. My parents were still able to go into my home, secure it and make sure that everything was okay. My emotions were immediately heightened but I tried my best to remain calm and to keep the best interest of my animal in mind. I was more concerned about her safety than anything else. Also, once I made arrangements for her to be taken care of I gave myself the space to unwind before coming to the forum and reaching out to support so that I was not explaining any of this situation with my emotions heightened. I hope that makes sense.
It is a very bizarre situation as I cannot see how she would benefit from paying another sitter to care for my pet. However, I do not feel sympathy for her. There was a boundary crossed of her giving strangers that she or I do not know access to my home and my pet. She could have easily communicated with me and we could have worked it out if she needed to arrive later, but instead went behind my back and violated my sense of safety. While I hope she learns and grows from this situation, I also hope that she will never have the opportunity to try doing it to anyone else.
I totally understand this and that it is not THS’s fault in anyway. I felt very comfortable going into this and spent weeks reading through posts on this forum before even signing up for THS. I thought that I was prepared for any possible situation, but I never read anything like this that has happened to me. I suppose that I am too trusting of people, but she had good reviews and our video call went very well. Unfortunately it wasn’t until the day of our trip when I was on the plane that I started feeling concern.
Yes, I got the doorbell camera specifically when I started using Rover for housesitting and then later learned about THS. Again this is my first time listing on THS, but I was very thorough in my research and I did make it very clear in our communication before confirming the sit and in the welcome guide that I have a doorbell camera (no cameras inside at all of course though). If it wasn’t for the Ring doorbell I would have never known.
I am still on my trip, traveling through some national parks and barely have service so I am trying to reply to as many people as possible. I hope you all can understand that it’s not very easy to do though. However, I want to say that I am extremely grateful to all of you for taking the time to read my post and reply. I am taking all of your advise very seriously and also using this as a learning experience for myself going forward. I hope that this doesn’t ever happen to anyone else and will try my best to keep you all updated on the Member Dispute with THS. The sitter who did has not messaged me at all to acknowledge the situation. If anyone has more questions please let me know. I will do my best to provide updates and answer whenever I am able to connect to WiFi.
Thank you Everyone!!!
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