Things you don't want to hear from a Confirmed Homeowner

(10 days before) “Can we leave a day early and return a day earlier?” (OK, check with sits on both ends, rearrange, confirm).
(2 days before) “Wanted you to know, we are fostering an abandoned pit bull mix puppy” (in addition to the 2 dogs & a cat we agreed to sit. Would never agree to sit an 80-pound puppy. Cancel or suck it up?)
(The day you arrive) “Oh, we have an ant problem. The exterminator has been out but we still have some in kitchen. Be careful with crumbs.”
(After dinner)“No, our welcome guide doesn’t say you have your own bathroom.” (Let’s ignore all their toiletries over every surface, used towels, washcloths, etc).
(Middle of night) Toilet leaking all over the floor - upon inspection, this didn’t just happen.
Ants are everywhere - not just in kitchen.

We have not had a good house-sitting summer post Covid. We leave today!

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Wow, @Tonibme , was this all from one sit? Fostering yet another animal would have been enough for me…so sorry you had to go through this.

Yep- but we’ve had 40+ really great sits - just unfortunate the 2 bad ones were nearly back-to-back. When Covid hit last year, our best option was buying a house and staying put for a year. It’s knowing that our house is 100 times better, cleaner & maintained that gives me the sour grapes.

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@Tonibme - wow. That really sucks. Our first sit back in the States turned into a nightmare for a very simple reason - we decided to not come back for the 2nd (unposted) sit whose dates were not confirmed. We decided to take a sure thing in Tucson and the homeowner freaked OUT. 3 days of abusive messages about how we ruined her life. Yikes.

I hope you don’t give up sitting once you move past this.

There is something to say for going home though, right? Especially during a pandemic. We have been considering buying a place for that exact reason.

The worst thing we were told by a homeowner upon arrival was that they were both selling the house while we were gone (please keep it clean and be available to leave when there are showings!) and that they didn’t pay for garbage collection so we had to illegally dump the trash at the gas station a few blocks away.

One interesting/funny request was from a homeowner in Austria - she pulled me aside right before she left and asked if I would please pee sitting down. Then she was like: wait, you’ll be cleaning the toilet, so do what you want. I’m still laughing at the whole experience.

Hysterical! We also pulled out of a sit this summer - first time ever. During the interview they told us that their indoor security cameras were picking up “poltergeists” - turns out, dust was setting off the sensors. The room we were to sleep in had 1000+ “collectable bears”. We ignored the red flags, thinking “how bad could it be?” Then we had our first awful sit and saw how bad, so we were slammed on social media - but don’t care. I resisted the urge to reply, but some poor sitters filled the slot. We love trading good stories with fellow housesitters - there are very few bad stories. Lots of laughs and love.

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My first sitting was trough the FB page outside THS. It was wonderful looking after elderly cat she barely moved. The host asked me to come again and this time it was a nightmare. It turned out she was just looking for a free labour around house. She gave me tasks for every day like reorganisation, decluttering, handyman work, going to post office 1 hour walk not even say thank you, making video calls with her in NZ so it had to be 1am, or showing video to potential renters, then trying to give her 17 years old cat for adoption, the cat was very stressed, so the woman who adopted her returned her back after a vet visit, saying the vet does not recommend adoption, and it could kill her. The host told me she will still try to adopt her it was dreadful to see what she does to animal after being 18 years together…she always said things like ’ ok these tasks are the last one then we are done’ and when she said that 3rd time i realised i need to leave , and started doing my drawing that evening, and was planned to tell her in morning i am leaving next day.
She probably sensed it and around 2am she called a police on me that i am damaging her outside cameras, trying to rob her or something. It was ahocking experience. Next day i had Dr appointment, told her i am leaving today and she said leave immediately, didnt let me to pack stuff, she said if i dont leave immediately she will send someone to change lockers, take over the posesion, and i wont get my stuff. I had there all my artwork, expensive camera i was saving for year, she said i should work there in exchange for rent and bills, that housesitting does not mean looking after animal only. I contacted the police, let her know i did, she turned suddenly nice ’ of course you will get your stuff’…there werent red flags, she worked for tv doing documentaries about helping poor countries, war, woman abuse etc, seemed like a person with good heart. Well dont let it confuse you you never really know, but i learnt a lot. -)

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Hi @Denisa79 , was this sitting arranged via THS?

Hi @Denisa79 , just read another of your threads indicating you have just organised your first sitting with THS which answers my question above.

I suppressed a giggle to some of these, but on the other hand, they are NOT funny. Poor you.

It’s become apparent that more than one of these unfortunate experiences came about as a result of the member sitting through another platform, service and not TrustedHousesitters.

The experience @Denisa79 had is very unfortunate but was not through TrustedHousesitters as she has just secured her first sit with us and we wish her every success and it’s testament to our community and the support we give members that the experience hasn’t put her off pet and housesitting.

Our community forum is for members to share and discuss every aspect of our amazing lifestyle, that includes “warts and all” when they TrustedHousesitters warts we will own them, respond and support members however when they belong to another platform or source please make that clear, not addressing by name or using any identifying details of course.

I’m now going to close this topic. If you’ve been unfortunate with a less than satisfactory experience there is a current “Unacceptable Housesit” topic.

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