“Trusted Housesitters had excellent sitters with lots of positive reviews and references. They unexpectedly mandated Americans submit their most private information for third party background checks. TH was implored to grandfather in those "tried and true " sitters but they refused. As a result they lost me and presumably many others. I now read countless stories about nightmare experiences from homeowners since. I wouldn't use them as a homeowner or as a sitter at this point. They are clearly not trustworthy any longer. Look elsewhere if you want to find responsible, reliable, honest sitters.”
“This company is a scam, when i joined there were at least 30 listed sitters in my area. I put a request for 3 weeks out to test the system. No one got back to me so I reached out to 5 individuals within 10 miles of my address. Only one replied and said she only wanted to sit for people in other parts of the country. The housesitters are using this app for vacations not to help with a safe environment for them and the pets. I am so disapointed and will stay with the kennel in town.”
“Trusted Housesitters is an ABSOLUTE nightmare. BEWARE!!
I had one sitter ruin my house because she didn't take my dogs outside. I even paid for my dog walker to come daily to help. I received a call from my dog walker that my house was covered in urine and feces. The sitter then called to tell me she had to cancel the sit -- I was out of the country at this time, and I had no way to get back. When I had to cancel my trip, at exorbitant expense to return early only to find that she had left my home without cleaning up any of the excrement. The original 1936 wood floors in my home were permanently ruined. I filed an insurance claim TWO YEARS AGO -- and even though it was accepted -- they still have NOT paid it out! I have followed up in writing (repeatedly), on the phone (repeatedly), and via their chat (repeatedly) for TWO YEARS, and I'm met with continual silence or agents who can't help and zero follow up from the company. This is now legally actionable as a bad faith insurance action....
BUT WAIT -- that's not even the worst part --
Fast forward -- I thought that would be a rare exception to hire a "trusted housekeeper" who would be so neglectful. Boy was I wrong. Shame on me...... I needed someone to watch my home and the endangered parrot I was fostering for a local rescue organization for only 36 hours. Not even two whole days. One the first evening, I get a phone call from the sitter that she "just found the parrot dead". The parrot didn't have any health problems, but birds can hide things. SHe just had "no idea what could possibly have happened". I asked her to facetime me -- there as blood on the cage. I knew she was lying. Because the bird is endangered, we did a necropsy. The bird had two punctured lungs, and a punctured spleen, had bite marks consistent with canine on both sides of its body. The bird died by asphyxiating on its own blood, in pain and scared. She continued to lie and lie and lie. Did she bring a dog into the house?? Why wouldn't she tell me the truth?? No response. She went so far as to say someone must have broken into my home, brought in a random dog, took nothing, broke nothing, but killed the bird and then left. "Are you telling me that you think my house was burglarized while you were staying there? Do you realize I will now have to get the police involved -- and do you realize that they will need to question you on the details??" The vet concluded that the bird was killed outside of the cage and then systematically placed to make it appear as if it had died of natural causes.
I contacted Trusted Housesitters. I gave them the police report and also the necropsy report. They refused to take off her profile from the site because "she couldn't be reached for questioning". They let her continue to sit for multiple other people with direct knowledge and evidence of violation of their policie, the law and also many ethical considerations. They didn't remove her for well over a year after I threatened legal action against the site. THEY HAD DIRECT KNOWLEDGE OF VIOLATIONS AND ANIMAL DEATHS AND CONTINUED TO ALLOW HER TO SIT FOR OTHERS. Had those peoples' animals been harmed or injured, Trusted Housesitters would have also been responsible.
SHAME ON YOU TRUSTED HOUSESITTERS. You have no safety standards and yet you willingly take money from your subscribers. You owe those who pay you and the community at large to have basic ethical business practices. Either through sheer incompetence or intentional neglect, you are failing the entire platform.”
“I did a sit and left house spotless.nut elderly woman was awful and left terrible untried review which they said I cannot so so anything about despite having videos to.prove she's lying. Now witj a 1 star review I wasted my money to travel using it as whose going to allow.a.1 star review in their home. Disgraceful.”
“If I could give less I would. This bunch of charlatans cannot be trusted at all. They offer a money back guarantee which isn't worth the paper it is written on. I am more than sure that they use people to make your ad live, it happened to me before the end of the 14 day cooling off period, but via a video call this couple said that they couldn't make my departure time, and they were coming from NZ. They were well versed in what to say prior to them dropping that bombshell. I have now read many terrible reviews and only wish that I had done so prior to handing over any money. When you are trying to cancel your subscription, there are masses of pop ups to confuse into re subscribing at a discount for another year. It is a con.”
“I have been a user since 2020. The experience continues to go down hill as the billionaire owner of the company sees record profits. I want to leave now.
The fine print in all the terms basically ensures you don't have any protections-basically if anything goes wrong the fine print covers any costs by telling users that basically if any damages happen= homeowners are encouraged to sue and settle with housesitters and vice versa. The "insurance" for cancelled trips and hotel fees, not to be found. I had an incident where a housesitter canceled and left me stranded in the Canadian wilderness for three days- no help from trusted housesitters. It has been 4 months and I'm still trying to get some money back from the "premium coverage" I had been paying for. The customer service doesn't respond, I have to follow up every couple weeks, I've gotten no where. Such a rip off.”
“Changed. Quality got worse. Almost no sits in certain countries and cities. Most hosts have so many animals, that you cannot take care of all if you are not at least 2-4 people. Apartments and houses are often dirty and you are supposed to clear. Some hosts expect you to take care of their pets 24h, although they themselves spend less than 1h per day. I am cancelling this service as it does not pay off anymore. To expensive and difficult to find a suitable sit.”
“While there are many sits to comb through, Trusted Housesitters is a horrible company. There is absolutely no support. No customer service. The people you sit for are getting away with hundreds of dollars of free pet care and are often times not worth it. The hosts should absolutely tip especially if they know you are sitting for them for just something to do so in reality doing them the favor because you are not needing a place to stay while you travel. No customer service about falsely advertising a pet. I was recently attacked by a cat but never told by the owner that the cat is difficult. Never told the cats habits and difficulties. The neighbors warned me though when I was out walking the dog. I have yet to be able to even chat with customer service at Trusted Housesitters. Then in my review the owners blamed me that their cat just didnt like me. According to the neighbors the cat doesnt like anyone. I am about to stop using Trusted Housesitters.”
“We had an awful experience with a sitter.
A sitter lied to us about arriving and staying at our home. The sitter abandoned the stay and only arrived at our home once we involved Trusted Housesitter’s support.
The incident was reported to Trusted Housesitter’s and Ringdoorbell video footage was provided along with date and time stamped texts. This evidence showed texts from the sitter lying to us saying they were at the home when they actually showed up 36 hours after the sit started. We had evidence of three separate lies with corresponding ring doorbell footage showing the sitter was not at the home for the first 36 hours of the sit. The sitter arrived for the initial walk through and key pick and did not return until 36 hours after the agreed upon start of the sit.
Additionally we provided Trusted Housesitter’s support with ring doorbell footage where the sitter shared home security information with a third party in a very public setting, just meters from an active street and city sidewalk. This security breach could have potentially allowed strangers into our home.
Trusted Housesitter’s has only given this sitter a warning and has not removed the sitter from the site. I am fearful for future pet owners whose furry friends may be abandoned without food, fresh water, and toilet relief for over a day all while being lied to by this sitter that they are there.
Trusted Housesitter’s offered me 6 months of free service, which is appalling when this cost could offset cancelling a dangerous sitter’s account instead.
Additionally trusted Housesitter’s support advised me that in the future I need to provide a full list of not only what a sitter can do but what they can’t do on a sit.
They blamed me for listing the sit dates accurately and listing “staying at the home overnight” as a sitter responsibility. They implied I needed to specifically state “sitter can not arrive 36 hours late” or “sitter can not lie about arriving for the sit when they aren’t there” or “sitter can not lie about staying at the home overnight when they didn’t” or “sitter can not tell a random person where a spare key to the home is located”.
The fact that a homeowner must write out every dangerous situation that a Housesitter isn’t allowed to do puts pets and homeowners in danger. What if a homeowner doesn’t explicitly state that a pet should not be fed bleach or thrown off the roof? What if a homeowner doesn’t tell a sitter not to light the curtains on fire or throw the TV out the window? Is the homeowner partially to blame when they didn’t foresee untrustworthy behavior from a Trusted Housesitter?
Trusted Housesitter’s knowingly keeps untrustworthy and deceptive sitters on their site and does not remove them after dangerous code of conduct violations.”
“I arrived to a disgusting, unsanitary house and had to find a hotel instead. Trusted Housesitters refused to reimburse and could have cared less. I was out an additional $1000. Do not do anything through or with this company. They are a scam.”
“Scam, they don't disclose the full terms of service before you sign up and pay. The terms include you can't host if anyone else is occupying the house so it's useless for many people. Once you pay and ask for a refund, horrible customer service sends you through a bot that gives the runaround and no refund. I had to charge back at the bank.”
“I have had soo many great house and pet sitters from this website. I pay them NOTHING! It's awesome.
Right now there is a black friday savings event. Use code RAF294100 to save 30% AND get 3 months free!”
“There is no customer service, no phone numbers, no human to speak with, no website. It is a total scam and I have lost 300 for a " premium subscription".”
“Hello, Everything went wrong! difficult website and a lot of energy, time and twice paying for a membership. Nothing happens, no sits, no nothing. When you ask the customer services Why they send open sits and as soon you want to reply they are reviewing or already got annother sit, is still unanswered. I asked the same question in the community forum and that was more or less the same. I believe the forum is also runned by themselfs, because after ea few hours they closed the forum! I believe it is a scam, with lots of members for sits but a lot less pet owners on the side. All the time, effort and money is not worth at all to even bodder. Not my cup of tea.”
“Awful and incredibly aggressive toward Housesitters. I regret recommending it to friends because one immediately commented about censorship and overly stringent/controlling measures. I did not feel they had my best interest in mind and felt increasingly uncomfortable as a "Sarah M" proceeded to inform me that asking for assistance with transportation costs is in "violation of our code of conduct and could jeopardize your membership with us". For any additional transportation costs or special requirements; i.e. if a sitter had to drive a pet to the vet or was asked to drive a pet for a daily one hour hike with an additional hour and a half commute+prep time, one would assume they would be compensated. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case here. Any attempts to come up with a flexible solution is aggressively blocked.”
“My pet sitter Annaliese May from NZ was a total user and left my house dirty. I was also informed from neighbours she had a guy stay over after i specifically said no one is to stay. She broke a couple of things, used up pantry items, body wash and laundry wash after I her asked to replace “staples”. Had permission to use my car but left it sandy and no petrol top up. Not even a thank you. A total user.
My problem with Trusted House sitters is she had already removed her account before I could leave a review the next day. Seems like she knew she did the wrong thing? This means she can do this again. I’ve discussed this with the company and they can’t do anything. I suggested they don’t let anyone who uses their site to close their account until reviews are done. Maybe a couple of days? But they can’t do that either. Therefore they’re not a Trusted site.”
“They took 129 out of my account today and I don’t want to be a sitter! I hate animals and criminals who take my money. I’m on benefits for god sakes! I wanted to talk to a real person not a virtual assistant!!!!”
“Beware of trustedhousesitters.com
They tried to take 149.00 euros without me ever asking for their services.
I am thinking of reporting them to The Guardian too.
Avoid using them. They are crooks!!!
Elise Floriana Carla Leto”
“They market this service as a way to travel the world --- but you can't tell the truth about what you're doing. You have to say you're visiting friends or a tourist. When you are going across borders house sitting is illegal.
You can read about this on Reddit. There is nothing about this on the Trusted House Sitters website because they delete everything negative. People get turned away at the border. Then there is nobody to look after your pets. The sitter has to fly home immediately at their own expense.”
