Our home has gardens at the front and rear neither of which are large - around 60 sq m each excluding paved areas. Both are low maintenance and our brief to sitters is to mow the lawns and keep our plants alive. They had been recently landscaped to make them low maintenance as my wife and I are getting on bit and don’t want to spend many hours looking after them. A recent sitter has made negative comments saying that they are quite extensive and need a lot of work. I can only conclude that the sitter has either a tiny garden or none at all as the comments are simply not true. I am concerned that potential future sitters will be deterred from applying and would appreciate suggestions as to how to tackle the issue.
I would just respond with the facts. Something along the lines of:
I’m sorry you found the gardens too extensive to manage. They’re both around 60sm and have been designed to be low maintenance with regular tasks including x, y, and z. We’ve made things as easy as possible, but some work needs to be done. There are images of the gardens in the sit photos to get an idea of size.
Make sure the listing is clear as to exactly what and how often things need to be done. Personally I don’t take sits that require mowing as I don’t want to do it, but I know many people love puttering around in the gardens.
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We’ve done 15 sits so far, and every one of them that had grass, had a gardener come in to cut it at least every other week. Most of them also had automatic watering systems. I personally love to garden, so tending them is a joy for me.
I would think that pictures of the gardens would be sufficient to deter a sitter who didn’t want something of that size, along with a discussion of the care needed during your video or phone interview.
Whenever we see a negative response from a sitter, we read it thoroughly, I think a lot of sitters are like us, because quite often we find that it’s not a negative in our opinion. If you advertise a house with a garden and maintenance of the garden is required, then we just ignore any sitter that marks down an owner for having to take care of tasks. It’s the sitter that looks bad to us, not the owner.
It’s how you respond to their comments that matters to us, we want to see a reaction from the owner that stick to facts, without going down the he-said-she-said, tit-for-tat route. Rise above it.
Honestly, we’ve sat for quite a few that have had a negative from sitters, but we saw it as a fault with the sitter, not the owner. That’s not always the case, but it has been in our experience.
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I agree with @CreatureCuddler and @HappyDeb.
In my opinion, what’s really important is not the size of the garden but the accuracy of the tasks listed. If the listing is clear, the sitters’ review has no importance and it will make them more harm than the owner.
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You can respond to the review just as you have here - that the gardens are 60 sqm each and landscaped to be low maintenance. that they just require some mowing and watering etc as detailed in your listing and photographs (you should have this detail and photos in your listing).
If you get a lot of applicants put in as a requirement that the sitters have experience of owning and maintaining a garden. I’ve noticed some bizarre attitudes from sitters in various forums around garden maintenance, as if it’s asking too much to mow a lawn and their responsibilities stop where the air-conditioning ends at the door. Perhaps never having had to maintain a garden has blinded them to the necessity when you look after a property that has one.
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Being transparent and specific in your listing will work best in your interest as a host.
Personally, I never mow or garden. I’ll water, but not extensively. So any listing that mentions mowing or gardening will help me self-select out and save me and the host time.
At home, we hire out mowing and landscaping and enjoy our space without effort. Some folks prefer that and there’s nothing wrong with it. Not only do we avoid what we don’t want to do, we also help folks earn a living by hiring out such work.
The only problem would be a mismatch between sitter and host.
BTW, I’ve had hosts who hired out, as well as some who asked others to step in while they’re gone. They arranged that on their own and it never came up when we discussed the sits. One pair of hosts had a neighbor water the plants without irrigation installed. Another pair had their grown son come and mow their grass. I mention those for example, because you could also consider such if you like. That might help widen your pool of sitter applicants.
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Same. I haven’t mowed a lawn in 35+ years and have no intention of starting. In fact, one of the first landscaping things I plan to do when I buy property in the spring is killing the grass and replacing it with low/no maintenance ground cover. Can I mow a lawn? Sure. But I don’t want to. So I appreciate when a HO says it’s part of the duties so I can move on and someone who enjoys that kind of thing can apply for the sit.
In her application, the sitter did say that she was willing to undertake gardening tasks for £15 per week and we agreed to pay this. We live in a fairly remote location and don’t find it easy to get gardeners in so it’s a bit irksome to then get a negative review. Even at the age of 75, I don’t find it at all difficult to carry out the tasks that she agreed to do and she was at least 25 years younger than me.
Oh no! That was completely inappropriate and you should 100% mention that in your review of her - though it’s probably too late. You should not be paying your sitters.
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