Trusted House Sitters

My husband and I had to leave our house for three months because of our work.
We decided to use Trustedhouesitter.com as we thought it would be the best option for our pets and limit their stress while we are away.
Well, it was the most stressful experience for us!
The couple who stayed at our house lacked communication and left our house messy and dirty. I came back from a 20+ hour flight to find my house upside down, sink full of dishes, stoves, couch, and counter cover with dust and crumbles of food. They threw away my bedsheets and allowed my dog to chew on furniture, the floor was covered with cat litter, and the list goes on...
It is even more frustrating to ensure that the house was professionally clean before they arrived to offer them the best stay we could.

Additionally, they refused to pay the 700 $ bills of water, electricity, and internet they used during their housesitting and even claimed that we should keep in mind that they took care of our house and pet for free.

It's been a month since we are still trying to solve the situation with the website, but no action has been taken. We submit to their customer service all the proof, including screenshots, videos, and pictures from our house.

The couple's profile is still on, and they are probably already housesitting someone else home (I hope they won't have the same experience as us!)
We didn't receive any sort of commercial gesture or compensation, even though our membership is supposed to include some insurance. It's also been a month since we have been trying to reappropriate our own house, and it still doesn't feel like home again.

If you are thinking about using this website, think twice! In the end, you will never really know these persons or what's happening in your house while you are away, plus you will also not find any support from the website if something goes wrong!

( I couldn't add more pictures to my review as the files were too heavy)

I have been housesitting for more than 5 years around the world and this year I decided to subscribe to trustedhousesitter. The dishonesty of the company became apparent from the beginning: the 30% coupon discount suddenly became 25%, the enrolling process took several days because their platform is poorly working. I was invited for a housesit of 2 months in Costa Rica during high season in the Guanacaste area, Playa Coyote, by an Italian and German couple. Four days before the start of the assignment they canceled the sit without reason. Since I refused other invites to housesit, I was left with no alternative but to book an expensive accommodation. After reporting the facts to the helpdesk of trustedhousesitter, they replied that they would not take any action against the home owners.
Troustedhousitter is a company that invests most of its earning in marketing, buying advertisement on popular newspapers, supporting featured content and paying reviewers and bloggers to write well about them. This company destroyed a beautiful free exchange relationship between sitter and home owner, making money out of it. Their review system prevent housesitters from truly expressing their opinion on the home owners because they would receive a negative review in retaliation. There is absolutely no validation of the home owner and the fear of the housesitter to be banned from the site makes them slave of the home owners.

As both a house sitter and house owner, I have nothing but great things to say about this site. I have had wonderful sits so far. My husband and I just completed our second visit to a home in Western Australia. Our son and his family live in a suburb of Perth, Australia. 4 years ago, I joined the site looking for an afordable way to visit the kids. We had spent a lot of money over the years on both airfare from Canada on top of staying in not so nice rentals paying anywhere from $200.00 to $250.00 per night! Then I discovered Trusted House Sitters and found a beautiful little acreage only 7 kms from the kids house. It turned out that the owners, who we've come to call our friends, go away on vacation every year for 3 weeks in January which is when our grandkids are off school on summer vacation! The home owners have told us that we are welcome to sit for them every year that we are able to. They now check with us every year to give us first dibs on the sit before they post it to the website. There is no way that they would have found us, or us them if not for this site. My husband and I have done a sit in England as well as one only a few hours drive from us. We've had great success with those sits as well. We've also had 2 different couples come to look after our home and dogs as well as a woman who came from Ottawa, Ontario while we were on our last trip to Australia. Every one of them had great reviews which is why we chose them all, and have never been disappointed! As we are both now retired, we plan to use the website more and more to start spending winters somewhere warm, without breaking the bank! Also, their chat lines are incredibly efficient and helpful. Thank you Trusted House Sitters!

I chose a retired couple who had great reviews to pet sit for me for 8 days while I went a thousand miles away from my son's wedding they came the day before I took them out to dinner I showed them my house I answered any questions they slept overnight before I left everything was fine three days later they sent me an awful text saying that my house was disgusting that I didn't clean that they couldn't stand it anymore and I better find somebody else because they were leaving I tried to call both of them they did not answer I texted and said what is the problem they would never tell me what the problem was I finally was able to contact my friend at work who said her daughter would come over and do it for me I told the people and they left when my friend came over she said my house looked fine but some of my cats didn't even have any food out they never contacted trusted house sitters when I contacted trusted house sitters they wanted pictures of my dirty house I said my house was not dirty and I wanted my money back because I will never use them again they wanted more photo documentation I said I cannot I wasn't home they ruined what should have been a wonderful experience for me at my son's wedding the people that left had another agenda we don't know what it is but they caused me so much stress and anguish and trusted house sitters is really doing nothing to help me they won't refund my money they're going to give me a free month for a service that I will never use again

I had one successful house sit with a great review. However, the 2nd was a disaster which has made me realise we as SITTERS need to be very cautious. On the day I arrived the poorly behaved dog ransacked a near brand new Italian leather bag, pulled all the contents out, destroyed a lipstick... chewed a hole in it. I was extremely upset and decided to notify the owners straight away rather than leave it till the end of the holiday, when they came home all relaxed etc. This bag was expensive. I said I was very upset and that I would need to be compensated for this loss... they were non responsive to a degree. When I contacted Trusted House Sitters... I was given a curt response."oh well dogs will be dogs" type of thing... I was told that surely the people would help out but it was nothing to do with them and they weren't interested in the complaint. They don't take sides.

I then raised with them " And what if I had damaged the owners belongings or house"... well that's different. You would receive a caution and reprimand and I received an email warning me. And so the inequality was staring me in the face... I had nothing to fall back on, and no support from Trusted Sitters. No insurance. WE AS SITTERS DO NOT HAVE THE SAME PROTECTION AS OWNERS.

After numerous emails and rants, they began to back down and say oh well you can make a formal complaint. I knew that would be a total waste of time. I had unfortunately come across some awful people who really couldn't care less, chastised me for spoiling their holiday and did not compensate me for my bag... as their Jag sat in the garage of their tres expensive home. I thought that was appalling, but worse still, I completed the sit of 2 weeks without a word of thanks and they even ignored my checkout message. And also when I arrived I became aware they were doing a bathroom renovation, with the plumber coming and going (with his own key), total lack of privacy.

I decided to drop the case as I couldn't be bothered with the angst, but I feel I opened up a crack. Not really happy with this and as someone said we are looking after peoples animals and houses, its a big responsibility. Surely some protection and rights would be appropriate.

Thanks for your time.

As is true for any of these P2P sites, if everything works, it's great.

That was my thought upon coming home and finding my dog safe. I was so relieved I wrote a 5 star review for the house sitter (despite some earlier issues).

With that said, I found substantial damage in my house. I contacted Trusted House Sitters to see if I could change the review + to file a claim. (Something supposedly that I could do as I paid for the premium membership.) After a day, I got a message saying I could NOT change the review (why?) and that provided no help with the claim. I've tried to call 3 times and have been hung up on each time (after a lengthy wait). I've contacted them 4 more times (including through chat, which only provides chatbot links to the website which...tell me to contact them.)

The role (and the reason I paid nearly $300 for this...) of a site is to interact with the members and solve these problems. But Trusted House Sitters does none of this. I would have been as well off posting a "want to stay in my house for free ;)" ad on Craigslist. Better, really, because at least that wouldn't have cost me nearly $300.

EDIT: I contacted Trusted House Sitters (after something like 7 phone calls) and was told that they would NOT actually cover the damage done to my house (even though it was caused by the sitter and I am a premium member to which they heavily advertise that they WILL cover any damage to the house). They also would not ammend reviews or in any other way deal with the damage caused. (Even if it's only saying, "beware of this sitter".) DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE. You honestly would be better off hiring a stranger on Craigslist as it would be free...and you could put the extra $300 towards the cost of repairs.