Completely agree. Ask the sitter first as there may be a valid explanation as to why she was there but her car wasn’t.
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If the sitter was somewhere other than at the house sit overnight, then it’s their problem and not the HO responsibility to ensure the sitters are not potentially “caught out” by significant others.
Clarifying whether a sitter was upholding their side of an agreement to be in site overnight is not an intrusion. It is clarifying whether the sitter upheld their side of the agreement.
Imagine being on a holiday watching cameras of your housesitter back home. Absolutely ridiculous.
Rather than assume, ask your sitter.
But since they’ve done a fabulous job looking after your place and pets, I think that’s where your focus ought to be.
Not because you were spying on them and looking for problems.
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I really don’t think hosts deserve this. I’m a sitter and I have cameras on a property I own out of the country for security. I get alerts every day. I ignore all of them except the ones that say there’s a person on the property. It takes one second to open so I know who it is and if they belong there. If they do, great. The recording lasts a few seconds.
The host who started this thread indicated she had cameras. I doubt she was going back and watching them, especially on holiday. I certainly never do. But she probably noticed if she didn’t get a person alert from the night before when she woke in the morning. Sometimes, I have my son check on our property. If he doesn’t come when he indicated he would, I would definitely worry. He has no family there and knows only a few people. I assume a sitter would also know very few people unless they were local. I think a host can be concerned without being viewed as someone who spies on their sitters.
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Perhaps they got drunk in a pub and got a taxi home?
Always fun to speculate, and apparently easier than asking the sitters directly? 
Like @pietkuip , I would not apply for a sit with owners who mentioned their cameras in connection with sitter "misbehaviour ".
And I’d never leave a pet overnight. With dogs, I rarely leave them for more than a couple of hours. It’s not about leaving the dog here, as much as camera supervision, relying on neighbours and not trusting the sitter.
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I think I would take the fifth 
(I have always spent the night at my sits, but it was not always that my bicycle was there. So I could answer that it had been raining, but I would not want to answer such questions.)
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@kassi may I ask if it occured to you to ask the sitter before posting here? And your thoughts on that topic.
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But as the HO said being there overnight was not part of the agreement. She assumed it would be but it was not discussed.
We had a sit last year in the UK where the car wasn’t in the drive overnight because of a mixup with the car rental company. We took a taxi home, arriving later than we had expected because of the mixup. The next day, we took a taxi back to the airport to pick up the new rental. If the owners had looked at their ring camera, there was no car in front of the house from mid afternoon until mid morning the next day, but we were there. Talk to your sitter; sometimes the best laid plans are waylaid by a rental company!
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To be fair, I believe any HO would expect a sitter to be in the house overnight. It shouldn’t even be mentioned or debated in my view.
Ludicrous that it’s even been suggested.
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It’s a fair assumption. Otherwise, people could just do drop-in visits.
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Did you see her leaving and coming back on the camera? Is she local? Is it possible her car was having some work done on it?
The problem is people do have different beliefs. You only have to read the chats about what food can be eaten, how clean things should be to realise that.
If something is important to the HO or sitter then they need to communicate that not assume it.
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But not an assumption that worked for her if the sitter did not stay overnight. Which we still don’t know.
I know it will be uncomfortable, but is there a way to nicely ask? We would assume for the security of the pets and home, sitters would sleep in the home unless it was agreed upfront that there might be a night where that wasn’t the case. Was it a solo or a couple sitter setup? If it was a couple, maybe one person needed to leave for some reason while the other stayed. If it was solo, maybe he/she had car trouble somewhere and took the car to a mechanic then taking a taxi back to the home.
It’s common sense and logic, admittedly in short supply unfortunately.
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If your home is clean, your pets were cared for, and the sitter communicated with updates the entire sit, then that is what is most important.
You did not mention the duration of the sit, but If this was just a one-time only occurrence, I suggest letting it go as the sitter seemed to have done a good job of caring for your pets and home.
For your peace of mind, you could reach out to the sitter and gain clarification regarding the 13 hours. As you mentioned you don’t want to “negatively impact the sitter’s profile.” Therefore, get her side to ascertain what happened.
And while it is obvious and expected to most sitters to stay overnight, it may not be obvious to others.
Moving forward so that it is explicitly clear, you could state in your listing (as you suggested) "please don’t leave pets alone at home overnight” and / or that sitter(s) are expected to sleep overnight in your home.
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Exactly.
So if we know common sense and logic are in short supply why then assume.
If its important don’t assume, communicate it.
What other absolute common sense things do you recommend get mentioned?
Lock the door, turn off taps for example?
The welcome guide will be as thick as an encyclopedia!
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