We were gone for several weeks and the house sitters who had several five star reviews, claimed they were vegan, but they ate everything in the whole house! They ate everything in the pantry and never replaced the thing, they ate everything in the freezer and in the refrigerator, drank all the sodas and replaced it with generic, then sent a picture of them in our bed! We found dirty pots and pans put back under the cupboard, the showerhead completely removed from the upstairs bathroom, and the car we left them filled with gas was returned to us dry. And then he demanded we pay his Uber bill to the airport.
Doesn’t sound great TBH and that isn’t the norm. You need to review them honestly and say they ate all your food and used the car without filling it up again plus left dirty pans and a broken shower head. Deduct stars where appropriate. Reviews are blind and you have 14 days to write them, so maybe wait until you’re less irritated and then post it. Make the review factual and non emotional as it will serve you well. Did you make it clear on replacing food and gas that was used during the sit? Did you offer a lift back to the airport? How are the pets on your return? Sorry you had this experience. #reviewtime
I’m now wondering if this couple are in fact the actual THS membership couple- maybe they stood in for the real THS member with the great reviews. It sounds like a bait and switch situation maybe? Did you meet them in person for a handover?
Your Review is incredibly important, this isn’t normal sitter behaviour at all.
The sitters won’t see your review until they’ve done theirs. I wonder what they’ll write….
I’m so sorry this has been your first experience it’s pretty weird to be honest. Treat it as weird and in your review describe it factually.
Welcome to the forum @Petmum1 . Sorry to hear of your experience. This is NOT what is expected from a THS sitter. The platform would have gone out of business if this was how the majority of sitters behaved .
Change the title of this thread to sitter - not sit.
Write an honest review (if not too late)
Contact Membership Services about their conduct and especially demanding money for an Uber.
Keep all communications between you and the sitter(s) as evidence.
You say you have a photo of them in your bed - are they the same people as in the profile?
I agree it all sounds very strange.
That’s such a good question as often new HOs don’t realise that a review given by a sitter after an actual THS sit isn’t a reference given to sitters at the start of their THS membership simply from friends/family to get them started. THS now adds them together giving the impression they’re all equal and so I have 12 Reviews (9 actual Reviews +3 References).
References given before a sitter starts actually doing housesits on THS should not be grouped with THS reviews. Anyone can lie and ask a friend to make anything up just to get a reference.
Sometimes I wonder if the post is just a competitor trying to give THS a bad rap. There are so many now trying to get THS sitters and hosts. They sound so left field. Not saying they were reported and having to ask if this is the standard sounds fishy. I would like these questionable posts to put a link to their profile to confirm they are real.
wow that sounds like a shady set of sitters. Not normal at all.
The answer to this is that “most” sitters would not behave this way. But as the Homeowner (HO), you have to set the expectation by either writing it in your profile, welcome guide, or better yet for the most important (to you) things - VERBALLY on the initial video chat before confirming the sit. Using all 3 of these methods is a good plan to prevent this in the future. Then at the handover (you should arrange each sit to be an in person handover) I would reiterate all of the most important things.
If this is your first time using THS as a HO, please know that this can be avoided but you have to do the work up front. Sure, there is a chance you get a good sitter without effort (this is more likely than not by using the THS reviews as a guide) but there are many things you should be doing as a homeowner to select THE RIGHT sitter(s). Most importantly, read every review, read the sitters reviews of the past HOs, do a video chat introduction before offering the sit to make sure the written profile aligns with the actual person (people) during a real live video chat and that you are a good match. Sometimes even sitters with 50-5 reviews are not the rights ones for me.
@Petmum1 I’ll just touch on one point. Although these sitters were extremely inappropriate when it came to food/drink consumption, for future sitters I would suggest to choose your words carefully if your intention is kindness. I just finished a sit where the owners more than once insisted that I should eat or drink anything that’s in the home. Hopefully they gauged me well enough to realize I would not take advantage of that, but I do have concerns that with other sitters their kind offer could have backfired.
There are other posts on the forum about sitters abusing an owner’s kindness. I think, out of caution, all owners should clarify what is available, and put away or specify what should not be touched.
reviews are not the rights ones for me.