I am a HO I would be mortified to leave my house in that condition for any sitter. That is unacceptable.
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IMO, clean and tidy are two different things.
Clean is what is most important to me. (I can tolerate misc stacks of magazines and a bit of clutter, but grease on the stove/dishes/cabinets or a dirty bathroom is completely a no-no for me!).
Dirty diapers??? Really???
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I agree that there should be an equal rating system for both HO and HS. This is an equal exchange and I find it annoying already that HO’s don’t need to have background checks but sitters do. It doesn’t make sense to me.
And unfortunately I have also been in a number of scenarios where I’ve had to deep clean when I arrived to a sit. Sitters shouldn’t have to be a maid service, home security, and pet care all in one if the only thing in return is dirty accommodations. In normal circumstances, these are all paid services so the least a sitter could expect from an HO is the courtesy to clean to an airbnb/hotel standard before the sitter arrives if they are expecting a sitter to: make sure their home doesn’t get broken into/no squatters, take quality care of any animals, do basic upkeep of the home, and potentially care for plants/gardens.
But, in the event the home is not clean- sitters should have the opportunity to rate that rather than have to talk about it in the written portion of the review. Having to explicitly describe cleanliness as if no one understands what basic cleaning should look like feels like I’m being petty. I just want to use the written portion to talk about helpful and relevant details to the animal(s) or the sit overall, not waste my time having to mention-“oh and by the way, the house was disgusting when I arrived”.
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@PVGemini Thank you for the category suggestions, I have passed them back to the team who are currently working on the owner’s categories as part of the review system. I will let everyone know when they become available 
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The least???
Frankly, that is exaggerated. No hotel room or airbnb comes with pets with all the dirt that that generates. I would expect pet sitters to be prepared to tolerate that.
And a home is not built like a steel&glass hotel. It is typically a place where a family lives, with children. The owners are not professional cleaners. And they are preparing to travel.
If you want hotel standard, choose a hotel.
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@pietkuip is right. What’s the obsession with spotless homes?
Clean, yes. But asking for hotel standards when pet sitting sounds absurd to me.
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I agree with @pietkuip and @andrealovesanimals. My house is a home and not an Airbnb. It has books and magazines and probably what some people might consider clutter. I hoover and clean really well before a sit, including the fridge, but my oven is old and our kitchen sideboards are old. I both sit and have sitters. I try and be respectful for both sides. But some of the expectations seems over board and is starting to make me wonder if I want sitters anymore. It’s starting to make me feel depressed. I used to feel that there was a two way relationship and happy to have people come and stay, and generally it has worked out. I get the cleanliness piece but I also think one has to realise that people are trying both to clean and get ready for a trip (although some of.the examples here are awful). So I tend to understand if things aren’t “perfect”.
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Personally, I live cleaner and neater than most folks. But when I sit, I manage my expectations. And it seems unrealistic to expect Airbnb or hotel clean in hosts’ homes. Plus, I further lower expectations for hosts with young children, knowing how busy they must be. I just don’t want to sit at a home that’s gross or filthy.
When I see some sitters mention that they routinely spend a lot of time cleaning at hosts’ homes, I think their expectations are unrealistic and/or they could benefit from screening differently for matches with hosts. Maybe go on fewer sits if you must have Airbnb or hotel clean, because few people live that way. Otherwise, be prepared to clean a lot, because hosts shouldn’t have to clean to Airbnb or hotel standards, unless that’s how they want to live.
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@nikki
Please don’t get discouraged. I think a very small fraction of sitters actually post on this forum. And I really don’t think that the majority of us are clean freaks that expect hotel standard accommodation. I know that I don’t. Most places I have stayed in were very clean, but some were a bit scruffy and it didn’t bother me. None were gross or filthy.
That’s horrible! I can’t imagine leaving my home like that for the sitters. I do a thorough cleaning and if for some reason I can’t, I have it professionally cleaned prior to sitters coming.
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Good ideas. I’m a HO and I think those are great suggestions. It should be a good fit on both sides and sitters deserve to be well-informed prior to and comfortable during a stay.
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I never expect hotel clean standard when house sitting, but as I told before - I also do not expect greasy tables, dog fur on dishes and in the fridge, poops on the floor and lots of broken stuff in the house so you can’t use.
It’s totally disrespectful to the person who gonna care about the house and pets especially during long term housesits.
It’s been a week I already sit at this type of house and I cannot cancel cuz people left abroad and I am responsible now. However, I still can’t get rid of the baby poo smell in the house even though I’ve cleaned a lot already.
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YES!!! This is something that we have been requesting for seven years.
I did report a HO about her dirty home to THS, and they said that they’d be watching her, (whatever that means,) because unless other sitters dob her in, I don’t really know how they can ‘watch,’ her. She left us with a dirty house, grime all over the microwave and oven doors, the kitchen bin was full of rubbish, and the inside lid looked like it had never seen a good clean, (ever,) toilets that needed a good clean, spider webs with a spider in it, under the basin by the toilet, an unidentified stain on the doona cover, and the cushion from their outdoor swing couch, was placed on one of the kitchen seats, that was covered with spider webs, and other debris from being outside in the elements, and dog poo in most of the backyard, from their four dogs, and oh yes, we were also spied on by their door camera, where we were checked on our every move, so needless to stay, we did not stay for the entirety of the sit, just four days of a three week sit, then we were out of there. How disrespectful of all these HO who provide sitters with dirty homes! I feel that these culprits, just treat us like their own personal cleaners and pet sitters, and nothing else, and because I hear of these stories where the HO are providing dirty houses, it is way past the time, when THS, should be including the same feedback for sitters to HO, like they do to us.
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I think you are wrong and miss the point. What most of the sitters are referring to, is at the very least, clean the microwave and oven doors, so that at the very least, all those greasy drip marks have been cleaned off them. I’ve had the misfortune to experience this kind of laziness, and it’s just plain disrespectful, and in accordance with the THS rules set out to HO, they are expected to leave sitters with clean and tidy houses, but some of them are just not. Basic cleaning seems to have been missed by some of these HO., and as far as your reference to pets generating dirt, I am at a loss as to what you are referring to, as no animal I’ve ever come across during my sits, have ever ‘generated dirt’ so your comment does not make any sense, at all. Sitters are not expecting any kind of steel/glass structures like your referring to, just a clean and less cluttered house, nothing more-nothing less.
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That’s a great idea!
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This is badly needed! We have had two bad sits (out of 20+) where cleanliness was concerned and I’ve realised with hindsight that both have used estate agent photos on the listing and the home then bore no resemblance to the photos on arrival. I’ve since learned to spot the signs of estate agent photos in listings and presume those HOs are trying to hide something and so avoid applying for those sits. The current sit we’re in is so bad we’ve raised it as a complaint with THS in the hopes they warn the next sitters who are due after us to save them the same experience we’ve had.
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Quite honestly , 20 of us could walk into the same home and think 20 different things about the cleaniness of it, we all have our own ideas of what that looks like…sitters and homeowners. I go into homes all the time for my work and have seen the worst of the worst. I think its important when rating someone on the cleanliness of their home to step back and really think about your own ideals of what a clean home looks/feels like. I’ve done sits where the cleaniness was not up to “My” standards, but the home was still nice and comfy and clean bedding, etc…I’m not going to rate them poorly because they dont live how I do.
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I’ve gone into many homes over the years. Some may not be up to my standards, but I don’t have to live there. With pet sitting, I’ll be living there for the duration of my sit, sleeping in their beds, showering, preparing my meals and the meals of the pets I care for. There are homes that are lived in and not neat, but those are clean enough so you don’t feel like you need to sanitize anything to stay there. Then there are the other kind of sits. The pictures in the listing don’t show the garbage piled high or the smell, the sheets that are dirty and stained, the fridge that is full of spoiled food, the litter box that no amount of cleaner could get the smell out. I’ve never turned around and left upon encountering this, but I’ve wanted to. Instead, I’ve cleaned the areas I’ll need to feel comfortable as soon as I get there.
I am hopeful with the upcoming changes for reviews that there is a category for cleanliness when reviewing a sit. I would share what I encountered, which could be amazing because I’ve had those too, or not. It’s then up to the potential sitter to decide what they are comfortable with.
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I suggest that until the separate categories are introduced (or not), sitters create and score their own categories if they feel it necessary.
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