Thank you @janet for being a very caring and appreciative owner/pet parent. A successful pet and housesitting experience happens when all parties communicate their needs and expectations and help one another achieve the desired goal … to keep pets happy and home and allow the appreciation to flow in both directions.
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Ooh, @barbsun54, you sound lovely! I’d definitely want to sit for you 
@Bri; another fab HO to add to my list!
We usually only touch food items if a HO repeats the offer at least 3 times. One HO even explicitly said: if everything is gone when he’s back it’s OK and expected.
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I am the same. However, I am currently a house sitter and I was told to take what I wanted from the fridge and cupboard but most of the items were used by (expired) or close to. I actually cleaned the fridge for them but left those items for them to sort out. I mean there was a block of cheese there used by July 2022
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I leave a fridge full of food and cupboards stuffed with food too. I ask them not to touch the things in our larder as we have hard to find food and store items in there, but I’ve never thought to mention the freezer. It’s so weird they would help themselves to meat in your freezer.
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As an owner who had a recent sitter clean out the freezer (chicken breast, wagu mince, frozen fruits, desserts - all the expensive stuff!) this is NOT ok for sitters to help themselves to unless directly given permission. In our welcome note we included that the sitter was welcome to pantry staples, and said they could use the eggs and cheese left in the fridge, but perhaps advice for owners would be to include very specific notes about what the sitter can and can’t help themselves to.
The freezer food is weird to touch, given the point of a freezer is long term storage and its not like the food will go off…
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Ouch @cmwaterman that’s not good, sorry to hear it. We were only talking about how different people are this morning. You travel several hours for an early morning meet & greet & are not even offered a coffee as you watch them prepare their lunch sandwiches minus a loaf for you for later that day 
Versus arrival to half a dozen bottles of wine & a note to enjoy, or a fridge full of goodies saying “help yourself”. They are two extremes but we like sits the most when someone has put a bit of thought into your arrival to make you feel welcome. That’s all. #simplereally
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They are two wild extremes you have experienced! Good to get some insight in to other peoples experiences.
We like to think somewhere in the middle is a fair balance for both owners and sitters - we always leave a treat (chocolate or wine) with our welcome note for sitters, and offer that they can use pantry staples and anything in our fridge such as condiments or things that will otherwise expire. We also leave cash to buy extra food for our animals.
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The one that really takes the biscuit (no pun intended) was an international sit that involved a flight, a ferry, a taxi and arrival in a rainstorm to an island house with an entirely deserted fridge (& the HO was a local restaurant owner) other than a slick of milk. No kettle, coffee, tea, coffee maker, tea towels, bath towels, bath mat & so on… Lovely people but when we questioned it they did say “Oh, we better buy some things for the next sitters” Hmmnnnnn, yup! #lovelysittho
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Where is the shake-my-head emoji when we need it?
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Thank you for this thread. We are fairly new to THS and have had a handful of sits. All went very well, except for our most recent sit.
We always ask the sitter if we can get them any food to start the sit. No one has taken us up on this. We take the sitter out to dinner the night they arrive as we always leave super early in the morning. We like to get to know them, our pet and go over any other questions they may have. I let them know to help themselves to all perishable items and all condiments in refrigerator, spices and anything in the pantry. I might have said help yourselves to whatever. Big mistake.
It never occurred to me to mention the freezer items. When we returned home very late in the evening and the sitters were supposed to spend the night. They couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. I didn’t think anything of it, until I opened the freezer to get something, and the freezer was almost completely empty. They helped themselves to all our steaks, hamburgers, scallops, seafood, appetizers, etc. I have fresh fruit frozen from my garden and was planning on using the fruit to make a pie for Thanksgiving and they ate almost all of it. The berries was what really made me mad. Everything else can be replaced. Lesson learned! Freezer foods will be discussed from now on. Sad that this has to be addressed. After reading this thread, I know most sitters are not like this, but you don’t know this from the beginning.
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Welcome to the forum @avidtraveler !
So sorry this happened to you! It is not normal at all! Although I think it is unnecessary to mention it is probably wise to do it. Hope you will have better experiences going forward!
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I’m sorry this happened and please make sure you mention it in your review. It’s not acceptable at all. As long as you leave them decent space in the freezer for their own food, you are good and they should not touch anything of yours unless specifically given permission. I have occasionally used freezer food, but only if it’s something easily replaced at the supermarket - like a (supermarket, not garden) bag of frozen veg or something.
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@avidtraveler I’m sorry this happened, and I don’t think it is normal.
Only once in more than 30 sits did a host specifically tell us to help ourselves to “meat from the freezer”. We really appreciated their generosity, but we only used one thing. It didn’t seem right to take more, even with permission.
Otherwise we would never use anything other than ice cubes from the freezer.
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Like Debbie, even when hosts are generous, I don’t take advantage of them. That’s just as a guest anywhere, not just while sitting.
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@avidtraveler Even when I am invited to help myself, the freezer is always off-limits to my mind. Only once- the HO invited me to sample the homemade sausage they made from their recently slaughtered pigs. 
But I only ate 1 package.
The pigs’ ‘corral’ was right next to the chicken coop. Not what I think of as a ‘pig pen.’ Quite neat and not muddy.
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I’m so sorry this happened to you, @avidtraveler 
I’m glad that this discussion has helped you see that not all sitters are like that, and I hope the additional validation from @Garfield, @CreatureCuddler, @Debbie, @Maggie8K and @toml has helped restore your confidence. Thanks everyone for popping on to support OP.
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