“This is a terrible flat form. First, you need to join and pay a membership in order to advertise your sit. If you by any change communicated with another member (even though you end up not using the service), you could not get your refund within the 14 days period. The refund policy made it a way to trap a membership fees of a year at least!”
“I took a premium membership after more than 6 months using the platform because we were doing our first international petsit. I received an email from THS 1 week before our trip saying : "be sure to have a return ticket" and all these kind of information. Don't you find it's too late ? Our trip and petsit has been booked since 2months+
Also, we had a pet parent cancelling while we were all in the house, and we did not have our money back for the alternative accommodation we had to find last minute... And this sit was cut in 2 part, and the second part will not be reimbursed either because their T&C is that to have your money back for accommodation, the housesit must have been cancelled between 14 and 1 day before the actual date...
So one day to the other you could get kicked out out of the blue with no roof over your head. So in 2 months, because of this kind of experience we spend 2000€+. So please home owners stop thinking that housesit is free of charge, because it's also money, expensive energy, and loads of organization and insecurity!
I don't even take in consideration all the time we had to throw away bad food from the fridge, and re-buy the items in order for the owners that they don't think we ate it, but because it has gone bad! So you do the groceries twice, for you, and for the home owner when they come back, because if you finish a can of mayonnaise in which there's is only one teaspoon left, then you buy it all new, and you leave it in the fridge...
Be lucky if you have everything in good shape to do the cleaning, and that regular products, toilet paper, spices etc are not empty when you arrive, and that the house is clean, otherwise you would be considered dirty because the homeowner does not remember how the house was, and you can't remember after a 3weeks trip or even less...
So again, lots of organisation, cleaning and attention to the pets and house, it's not a holiday AT ALL. I can't understand people who thinks housesitting and petsitting is a holiday, it's not. Like someone said below, it's not free, you're paying with your energy, stress, unsaid stuff, and your time... It's at least a half-time job.
Forgot to mention that the stuff is charming but yeah, they don't resolve anything...
Also forgot to mention that they don't even verify a listing offering a housesit in a private island... Which I talked about in my first sentence above... we ended up not being authorized by the new manager of the island because of liability and hurricane. And although the home owner was a delight, we had to stay in the mainland, just in front of a construction site, so constant noise all day (do I have to tell you that in an island, we don't have double glazing, and no windows at all but louvres with mosquito nets...? So the noise is just like being part of the staff of the construction site, despite the luxurious location...)
So again, no insurance, no holiday because we cannot take care of the dog and do long walks as we wanted and were told, so us + the pet are sad. Do I have to tell you how much it all costed?...”
“Some house owners live in deluded sense that sitters are a mother theresa doing volunteering work, and all that responsibilities and cleaning etc just because they cant be with pets. LOL you need to wake up to reality-sitters DO expect an airbnb style or at least nicely clean in good working order house as that is all they are asking in return of hard work...if you are so entitled and expect slave like in 1850's, then you need to find a paid service. But you wont, you are too cheap for that.”
“Dear pet & homeowner, If you love your home, care about your pets and a good relationship with your neibours, delete this app and run from their service as far as you can. I have had a membership for a year and had all kind of bad and worst experiences. The only one that worked was the first sitter and thats why i decided to give it a chance.
The second one broke a window glass that i paid out of my pockets, and the 3rd ond 4rd canceled 2 weeks and 2 days before I was leaving. Both for the same petsitting. Dont let you get fool, the million $ insurance they offer is not what you think and more difficult to claim for it than you may be imagine, and the sitters can cancel on you as late as in the same day you may have your plane tikets to leave the country, with NO PENALTY OR SOEVER FOR THE PETSITTER no matter of it is legitimate or not since even braking the code of conducts of this website doesnt mean a penalty for the pet sitter and in the case they come with a rare legible excuse, it wont be ask for a prove of anything.
Our last wanted-to-be -petsitter raised so many red flags when I told her that my friend would pop up once in a while to pick up the mail and check if she needed something and how my pets were doing that her reaction and behavior made me to get the police involved
to get my home key back from her after she canceled on the sitting 2 days before i was traveling away for 2 months. She was stupid enough to write in the "trusted"housesitter chat that my friend coming by was the reason why she was canceling but not even because of that will makes the company to penalize the sitter. In the other hand, to see how she freaked out for my friend coming to check on her and the mail made me wonder was she was hidding so bad and I relized that this set up is perfect for criminal activities that could be hidden easily in the privacy of petsowner home with their consent, such prostitution, human smuggling or trafficking. It might sounds a bit exagerated but as a foreign (and I am not originally from USA) you are not asked for police clarence from your home country in this site and my last 3 confirmed sitters happens to be Ukrainians leaving in USA, included the last unfit. YOU HAVE NO WARANTEES OF CRIMINAL CLEARANCE PROVIDED FROM THIS SITE.
Sure enough your pet babies will never be able to tell all what they saw.
The help service, emergency and unexistance telephone of contact (wich is a record masching telling you to go to the website and make a complain) WON'T HELP YOU AT ALL in situations like mine to mediate with the sitter when she refuses to talk to you to clear possible misunderstandings or return the key. They won't make sure either that the sitting would be cover by someone else more reliable.
They reched out to me, days after the date of my departure and only because my membership had expired and wanted me to renew it. They told me that for the monetary lost on this trip they strongly recommended me to upgrade my membership to be cover by cancelations.
I got so stressed that i got rushes all over my body and I never found a sitter for my babies for that dates.
I hope my dramatic experience will make aware more pet owners about the lack of protection in this site for the ones who have the most to loose.”
“I am an honest person. I have ethics. I signed up for this with some skepticism but wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt (negative reviews). But, this is the worst experience by far I've ever had. I've been in contact with them the past week only to find how they blame "their system" everytime for their own human mistakes. I don't even want to recite this whole experience but I'll tell you in a nutshell what happened quickly. 1) I signed up and got a basic membership to *have* a housesitter for my pets. This membership should last one full year from the time you buy it. A few months passed and I decided I also wanted to be a "sitter". I followed the prompts to "upgrade" as it told me that is what I needed to do to be able to be both a sitter and get a sitter. However, the plan page I upgraded to was for an upgrade to my own "parent-pet" page. This upgrade was accidentally purchased as an error on my part. I contacted them immediately and told them I pressed the wrong upgrade and they told me straight away"our system" doesn't provide refunds. I spent my entire Saturday first talking with a bot and then someone named John who just said, "sorry" we can't do that. Here is negative part: I found a place on the site that allows you to ask for a refund (this is good) however what they don't tell you is that if you get a refund for an upgrade that you made by mistake (and remember I was going for a combined upgrade but accidentally hit the wrong button) that they WIPE out your entire membership. For three days straight I went on explaining I still want to keep my membership *and* give them money to upgrade. So, instead of doing that, they just said, "sorry" our system "won't do that'. Sorry for the inconvenience. The 'inconvenience" - you mean sorry you didn't refund me the rest of my membership but instead kept money from me that I paid for in your bank account leaving me with absolutely NOTHING. They basically stole money from me in essence and won't take any responsibility for it. I'm enraged. My page got taken down. The real sh-ty part is that now I can't even use the plan I paid for. It's entirely fraudulent. I wouldn't trust them with anything.”
“I think this a terrible service. Terrible experience both the sitters and customer support with TrustedHousesitter. Sitters were allowed to make LIES about my home and how I take care of my animals. It's not only untrue but extremely hurtful. Who is allowed to make lies up about animal abuse and get away with it. Customer service is poor and people are allowed to post whatever they want so long as it's not racist, sexist, etc.”
“I got a free year to try the service but couldn’t see fully how it all worked unless I created an account, which I did, even though I did not try the service until 9 months later when I posted my first listing. I Confirmed a sitter, then they pulled out a week before the sit for reasons that were not supported by the code of conduct, leaving me stressed and scrambling to get another sitter. I managed to confirm another sit, but then shortly after, I lost use of the site as they started my free year from the time I created the account, not from the point I actually started using the service like they implied. They said I had to renew for another year if I wanted to contact the confirmed sitter to give them my address and arrange arrival time. I wasn’t in a financial position to do that at that time, but they were perfectly ok blackmailing me to try and spend money I didn’t have just to give an already confirmed sitter my address. Your most expensive cattery/kennel is a better option than this as at least you won’t be messed around, stressed, scammed and lose your holiday and money you spent booking that holiday.”
“We have such a bad experience from the team that not really helpful, We got suspended as sister report our dog bit him. But we don’t believe and want it to be escalated. As the dog can’t deny and spek for himself. They assume and put toward it that our dog bite the sister. I have provide all evidence and confirmation from previous sister or dog walker with the feedbacks with our dog. It looks like they don’t want to listen and decide to only protect sister side eventho we said sister not comply and follow the rule.”
“They are a scam. Stay away. I joined and they urged me to pay premium membership to get ease of mind for cancellations and better luck with sitters. When I relied on them to get a sitter who cancelled on the day of my trip, I had to find a super last minute and expensive sitter to cover my 4 animals at home. Then they started all sorts of nasty insurance tactics to not pay. I am still fighting after a month. Stay away folks. Worst support ever.”
“This company Trusted house sitters is failing many clients who pay yearly subscription. website daily freezes and it’s totally impossible to apply to do a sit … Seems lack this company needs to listen to customers who pay their wages , while owners and their pets get stressed out by this poor Website company”
“My experience with this platform – over a long time span and multiple communication attempts – has ultimately been of a serious lack of accountability, honesty, and ethics.”
“There is absolutely NO support if one of the side (both owners and sitters) gets in troubles. This website has nothing to do with the original idea and does not work at all. Have done about 10 sits over some years and we are done as have had to deal with dishonest owners, dirty and cluttered houses, noisy places (no previous warning), aggressive pets,... When you complain or ask for help they block your access to the website even if you just paid an annual fee of 100 GBP!”
“STAY AWAY FROM TRUSTED HOUSE SITTERS!!!!! "TRUSTED", what a joke. They make sure the person that shows up has matching id's. Schenley Brown showed up and was to stay a week. 2 days in she deactivated her account, but stayed the week. Had a party, drank all the alcohol in the house. Went through every room, and there are things missing, including credit cards. The cards were hidden where we thought no one would find them. I could go on and on. Schenley Brown you are a real POS. Trusted House Sitters are doing nothing, told us to call the cops. What a joke. So now talking to the police. If you are looking to go on a holiday and want to come back to a complete nightmare, then ok.”
“People - Use Housesitters UK instead. Its free as an owner, only £30 as a sitter and I have had a much better experience using it. I used Trusted Housesitters for about 3 years and it worked fine. Then I took a chance one holiday and used a new sitter with no reviews as she sounded nice and it's nice to help people get started. 2 days in to my holiday she made claims about the house not being clean etc (a cleaner was in my house when she arrived and she had ample opportunity to say then!). Our house is large, by the sea, has a hot tub and sauna and is a preferred listing on Air BNB. Yet Trusted Housesitters didnt even contact me, I had to come back from my holiday because she wanted to leave ( I think she wasn't interested in the dog and just wanted an easy holiday) and then they froze my account despite numerous attempts to contact them. I sent lots of pictures of the house etc but nothing. They just immediately believed her despite my 5 star reviews and being on the site several years. They would literally just hang up. The most unhelpful company ever. They ruined my holiday. As I am a lawyer I contemplated suing them. But I find its better to wait and let karma have its way.”
“I have been using Trustedhousesitters for over 3 years. But be aware if you run into a problem you are on own. I wanted to cancel a sit because getting a weird feeling about the woman. Did change the new dates we agreed upon. I'll do it later. Or I forget. Then friend was going to stay a week at the beginning and end to show me the house. Granted it was a separate unit.But originally she was going to have her mother me meet. Then it was all FaceTime you show the house..which I hate and don't have find for. This sit was way to complicated for me. Tired of the back and forth and no follow through on new dates.This sit is two months out. But trustedhousers doesnt care. They will answer an email. But phone call forget it. Only the owner can cancel and she's not because she told me..I'm not the one who canceled. If you are going out of the country for a long sit the sitter needs to feel comfortable. I have done several very successful housesits with excellent reviews. No they don't go perfectly. My last sit I had a boil water order for 8 days with 5 long haired cats. The owners were lovely and knew I could count on them for communication. This is key when doing a sit. I could go on and on about the many experiences I have had. This site doesn't value the sitter. Owner over the sitter. Company is not what it was when I joined. I travel all over US and used to tell people sign up for your pets. But not now. I don't know what is going to happen as I am done communicating with this woman. She has premium membership so possibly she will get money . I know she mentioned one sitter leaving early. Wish I had never thought it's probably ok. I have enough repeats on housesits I can go on my own or join another housesit company
For now I will continue on knowing I will get no support.”
“I have been using Trustedhousesitters for over 3 years. But be aware if you run into a problem you are on own. I wanted to cancel a sit because getting a weird feeling about the woman. Did change the new dates we agreed upon. I'll do it later. Or I forget. Then friend was going to stay a week at the beginning and end to show me the house. Granted it was a separate unit.But originally she was going to have her mother me meet. Then it was all FaceTime you show the house..which I hate and don't have find for. This sit was way to complicated for me. Tired of the back and forth and no follow through on new dates.This sit is two months out. But trustedhousers doesnt care. They will answer an email. But phone call forget it. Only the owner can cancel and she's not because she told me..I'm not the one who canceled. If you are going out of the country for a long sit the sitter needs to feel comfortable. I have done several very successful housesits with excellent reviews. No they don't go perfectly. My last sit I had a boil water order for 8 days with 5 long haired cats. The owners were lovely and knew I could count on them for communication. This is key when doing a sit. I could go on and on about the many experiences I have had. This site doesn't value the sitter. Owner over the sitter. Company is not what it was when I joined. I travel all over US and used to tell people sign up for your pets. But not now. I don't know what is going to happen as I am done communicating with this woman. She has premium membership so possibly she will get money . I know she mentioned one sitter leaving early. Wish I had never thought it's probably ok. I have enough repeats on housesits I can go on my own or join another housesit company
For now I will continue on knowing I will get no support.”
“No one answers the phone. Ive had a had time with home owners being dishonest about their pets and walking into worst case scenarios. There is no one on your side or even willing to help”
