Don’t use him as a house sitter again. Of course you should consider the next time when you use a different house sitter you might come home and find your house trashed from the big party. And you weren’t really attached to those cats were you?
I think you did pretty well with this guy.
Did you leave written instructions about how to use the alarm, etc? If not, I think you’ve got little cause to complain about that. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect someone who’s not very technical to remember how to set an alarm to Home, Away and Off after seeing it done once. Whenever I have house sitters or pet sitters I leave written instructions about things that are important to me; a lot of perfectly non-spaz (sigh) people won’t remember every detail when you give them a long string of instructions all at once. Confusing the activate procedure with the deactivate procedure doesn’t seem particularly abnormal to me.
And…you have a house phone still? And a good friend, whose missed call really bummed you out, didn’t have your cell? Are you a dinosaur?
ETA: Don’t give a FF about the use of the word spaz. Or the many iterations of Tard for that matter. But that’s it’s own thread.
Is everyone just down on the OP because of the use of “spaz”?
Because I think he has a valid complaint. How or why does someone erase voice mail as part of “house sitting”? That’s not a passive mistake, an oversight. And the sitter agreed to use the alarm. Just because some of you think an alarm is useless doesn’t mean it is. Agreed-upon tasks not completed is a valid complaint.
I have a house phone. You got a problem with that?
I think it’s more that when you ask a friend to help, you’ll get friend-level competency. It actually sounds like things went pretty good over 3 weeks. That’s a long time to house sit and would be an imposition for most people. The money a friend received would be more to compensate him for the hassle rather than paying him for a professional job.
And on the flip side, I’m sure many of us can recall times when we helped a friend out and the friend was upset because the help wasn’t at a pro-level. I know I’ve given up helping friends and relatives with their computer issues since they rarely seem to appreciate the hours I spend fixing their problem, but they are quick to complain if any minor thing isn’t perfect. My attitude is, if you want a pro-level solution, pay a pro to do it.
The housesitter did great in my opinion. Sure, he didn’t need to delete the voice mail messages but who gives a shit about the message from your friend thanking you for a post card? You obviously got the message and all is well. He probably listened to the message to make sure it wasn’t house related (like the gas company turning off the gas), deleted it accidentally, and then forgot about it because it is approximately the least consequential voice mail in the history of voice mail messages.
+1. I’ve never paid a housesitter but when my friends stay at my house without me (whether for their convenience or mine), they receive a copy of “Home: A User’s Guide,” which I wrote to make their lives easier. It tells them how to connect to wifi and use the TV. There is a sketch of the interior with notes about finding the water shutoff, etc. It invites them to eat and drink whatever they want. It also has a neighborhood map and guidance like how to find the 7/11, subway, etc. and lists of good restaurants that deliver. I also have contact information for my handy neighbor, our vet, and some contractors who handle our plumbing, heat, and electrical work.
If nothing was stolen, the alarm unused was in fact entirely useless for the duration of the owners’ absence. It could have been different, but it wasn’t. Most of the benefit of the alarm is the sign that says you have an alarm, which deters the break-in to begin with.
But do professional housesitters take your phone calls and forward along your cell number for you? If I was housesitting for a friend, I wouldn’t accept answering their landline as part of my duties. The messages are recorded and the owner can access them remotely, I’m not playing secretary
I’d say this whole alarm thing is being blown out of proportion. Do you live in a palace? Most people get by without alarm systems, especially if there’s someone actually staying at the house.
Did you give him instructions on giving out your cell phone number or what messages should be urgent enough to relay immediately? If these kinds of calls and messages were important to you, why didn’t you forward them? Why did he have access to your voice mail in the first place? You can access voice mail remotely these days.
Overall it sounds like he did a good job–left the place clean and intact, and kept the pets alive.
No, it’s just really weird. Especially in light of a good friend having the number to the telemarketing line, but not the cell phone which people actually use.
You might want to sit down for this one. I not only have a landline but I also don’t have a cellphone.
If you paid him to do the job, you are entitled to criticize his job performance. But as a guy who used to manage a lot of employees, I know it’s easy to fall into the trap of only seeing the mistakes somebody made and taking all of the things they did right for granted. My advice is you make a list of the pluses and minuses of what he did and decide if you want to hire him again based on his overall job performance.
This.
I’d guess your friend isn’t very technically inclined, and was confused by the alarm, and didn’t want to bug you with a long rambling call about something that didn’t matter very much because he was there to keep an eye in things. And he knew that it wouldn’t be one phone call. He’d need to call you over and over about the alarm.
Unless you think he deleted the voice messages on purpose, I’d say you did pretty well.
My landline has much better quality than my cell phone, especially in my home, where I get lousy cell reception. And it’s never awkward when my home phone rings, unlike my cell phone.
I encourage all my friends to use my land line when they call me.
This I have to disagree with. This is like saying “why have a fire extinguisher in the house? I’ve never had a fire. It’s useless.” Or, “I didn’t need my seatbelts, they were useless.”
You don’t know when someone is going to break in. If you did, you could just set the alarm for that day.
Jeeze, wish I could find house sitters that did as well as this guy. 
I am mildly surprised to find that some folks still have landlines. Also, I am a bit perplexed why housesitter would’ve answered it.
Oh my…the vapors! [falls out of chair]
Yes.
Exactly.
**puzzlegal **, why do you think he would have had to call over and over? And it would not have been a long, rambling call. “I keep putting in the digital code and nothing happens.” “Press ‘home’ to set, ##### to deactivate.” End of.
And we’re in the same situation as you: crummy cell reception in house, so we keep the landline.
We can’t access voicemail remotely. As for passing on the message, that’s what I don’t quite get: why he would answer the phone but not pass on the message.
**Tired and Cranky **, FWIW, the reason I gave a shit about that particular message is because R is not in the best health (he’s the guy I was sending cookies to when he was in assisted living). I always have it in the back of my mind that any particular phone convo or email might be the last contact I have with him. Beyond that, I don’t make other people’s decisions for them, and I don’t like people making mine, as in “That call wasn’t important.”
Should I ask a mod to change “sp-z”? Or is it too late?
The landline thing sounds like bad planning - I’m not really sure why you gave him the voicemail code or had him mess with it. Just turn the ringer off, let any calls roll to voicemail, and don’t worry about trying to get him to do something that made sense (but also wasn’t done often) thirty years ago. IMO you screwed this one up by giving him access to the voicemail system in the first place, there’s just no reason for him to even be in it - it makes sense to be annoyed with him for messing up the voice mails, but that was entirely preventable.
I don’t get the alarm thing, you had someone in the house so you didn’t get burgled, and he probably thought he was setting it by putting in the code. IMO the alarm is something for times when you don’t have a house sitter, I can’t see getting worried over whether the guy set it while he was in the house.
It sounds like the guy did fine and the problems were basically issues that you created yourself. I don’t know what the money amount was, but I certainly wouldn’t think he was a bad house sitter.
Dannnnnggg, y’all bein’ harsh on Rilch.
Yes, I think the house sitter missed the mark, but in minor ways. Now you know how responsible they are - lesson learned. Your choice whether you would use them again, based on this experience, yah?
Life is a learning process, next time you have a house sitter you can make your instructions just a little more specific. And the time after that, there will probably a few more items to add. Etc.
We didn’t give him the voicemail code, because there isn’t one. It’s more of an answering machine that’s built into the phone. No code needed to access it.
Even easier to accidentally erase it then. Especially by some one bumbling with buttons.