Alarm - AFAIC a nighttime alarm is to protect the people not the house. If he didn’t want to be “protected”, that’s his choice. Not setting the alarm when he went on a quick trip to a bodega is also not a big deal. Unless you live in a semi-lawless hellhole. I declare this issue - Reasonable
Messages - He is a housesitter, not a message service. It should not be his concern to answer your phone, pass along messages, or give out your cell number, unless you have given him specific instructions on doing so as part of the deal. Deleting your messages is, unfortunately, also a no-no and rightfully is a black mark on his performance as a house sitter. He should also not have answered the phone, unless he was instructed to do so and was prepared to deal with the caller. I declare this issue - He messed up.
Because he won’t remember the next time, either. Some people find unfamiliar technology hard to use. Frankly, many people find unfamiliar technology hard to use.
Probably because “thanks for the postcard” is probably the least urgent message in the world, and he thought it would be fine to tell you when you got home.
I wouldn’t want someone giving out my number to people they don’t know, either. Yeah, he could have mentioned it when he texted you, but it probably slipped his mind because it’s hard to imagine a more boring message.
Well, that makes sense. I can see why you cared. But it’s sort of a leap to think someone else will guess that from “hey, I want to call them and thank them for the postcard”. Honestly, that’s the sort of message you get from annoying, high-maintainence relatives and friends, and not the sort of message most people want to hear.
Mine works the same. We have similar technology. Except when my alarm (installed by the prior owner) system broke I just cut enough wires that it stopped making noise. And eventually an electrician removed a lot of the extra phone wires that were making my reception suck.
Yeah, it’s pretty easy to accidentally delete all of my messages while trying to re-play one. I haven’t done it, but if my MIL tried I’d give 70% odds she’s erase them all.
I think you should give your friend a break on the alarm stuff, especially if you left no written instructions for him. And especially if you didn’t evaluate his ability to use it before you hired him. Stuff like this is a “live and learn” dealie and not worth souring a friendship over.
I don’t think your expectations are out of line from an objective sense, but I do think they’re out of line to expect from a friend helping you out. It would be the same if you asked him to help you with other tasks. If you asked him to move, he’s not a professional mover and wouldn’t perform the job up to that level. If you asked him to help paint, he wouldn’t do the job like a pro. For the performance level you expected for this task, I think you should have gone with a professional. Unless a friend is super detail oriented, a friend is going to likely going to let you down based on the high expectations you want. It’s not that what you are asking is so out of line for a house sitter. But rather that a friend is just a normal person who may or may not have any desire to do the job at a professional level.
The alarm thing is what is most confusing to me. The purpose of the alarm is to make sure nobody breaks in. Nobody broke in. Exact same outcome so why is it a problem?
We had a “home phone” almost 20 years ago… it actually was a cell phone that sat on a dock on the counter. When we went on vacation we simply took it with us.
This really confused my mom.
Us: We are going on vacation next week.
Mom: That’s nice… how can I get a hold of you if needed?
Us: Just call like you always do.
Mom: But you will be on vacation.
Us: We will have the phone with us.
Mom: But you won’t be home to answer it.
Us: Plans have changed… we aren’t going on vacation so just call our home phone if you need us.
NEXT WEEK
Mom: Why does it sound like waves crashing in the background?
We left written instructions. And we showed him how before we left. Guess we should have asked him to turn it on and off once, without us prompting him. Still, we didn’t leave him to figure it out on his own.
The message thing…clearly Mr. Rilch and I don’t see it the way others do. It’s **because ** he’s a friend that we thought there would be a more personal touch than if we hired a relative stranger. It’s not so much a matter of work for pay, as that we’ve known this guy for close to thirty years, and we thought he had a better sense of what’s important to us. Like the alarm. Like a call from a friend. People say “I can’t read your mind,” but he doesn’t need ESP to know that Mr. Rilch would much, **much ** rather have gotten a call about the alarm, or even a series of calls, than not have it set.
(And FTR, it’s not so much being robbed we’re worried about; it’s more like mayhem.)
Can you be more specific… do you live in a riot zone? Bottom line… nothing happened. No harm, no foul.
You have heard of Phishing scams right? They call and act like a friend, legitimate company etc. and if they don’t get what they want they ask for a different number to connect to their target. I would thank your friend for not giving out your cell.
Your missing the point. Yes, going forward, a seat belt is a great idea because you can’t predict what will happen. However, you can be 100% certain you didn’t get in a wreck last time, and you can’t go back in time to change what you did anyway.
Well, the ideal thing to do is to convey the message to Rilchiam and then let him decide whether or not to respond to it.
Because I email tons of people about big events, I often get requests of the form, “do you an email address for XYZ?” When that happens, I don’t give out XYZ’s email, I forward the email along to XYZ with the requestor’s contact info, and it’s up to them if they want to respond. (So far they have responded, 100% of the time. But about a third of the time they also thank me for not giving out their info myself.)
But I give the guy a pass on this one because “I want to say thank you for a postcard” sounds so totally banal and non-urgent.
I think “ditz” or some form of the word “inept” might fill the bill. On the actual topic, I’m with everyone else who thinks that your friend did a decent, though imperfect, job.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be upset with the friend. Well, okay, I’d be annoyed. But I wouldn’t break up the friendship, or expect them to do anything to compensate me or anything. On the other hand, they aren’t a good fit for housesitting for you. I wouldn’t ask them to do it again, either.
I don’t think the alarm is a big issue at all. It’s not even a minor one, IMO. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. The voicemail thing is strange. If I was house sitting for you, I wouldn’t even answer your phone, let alone mess with your voice mails. That’s just strange. I’d assume you’d have an away message explaining that you are out of town and leave an alternate method of contact for any emergencies. I really don’t know why he’d need to be answering your house phone at all
At least he didn’t invite a friend to come stay in your house while you were gone, and then have the nerve to ask if the friend can stay an additional week once you get back home. I had that happen one time. The day before we got back, the sitter asked if her friend could still stay in our house until his flight about a week later. The sitter never bothered to ask if the friend was welcome to stay at all. She just invited him to stay like it was her house. W.T.F. That one still bothers me to think about. It’s just such a strange thing to do, IMO.
I think this thread kinda makes the point, that friends is friends, but business is business.
This guy has been a friend for 30 years. Great. Turns out he isn’t what you are personally looking for in a house sitter. Also great. Nothing bad happened (other than a missed phone call that several of us don’t think as important as you did), but now you know that next time you’ll have to make different arrangements (and HOPE for better results.)
Don’t know that I’d be “seriously displeased” about it. I think it would be a mistake to dwell on this other than to just NOT ask T to house sit next time you travel.
Your end goal was that the cats would be fed and cared for… the house would still be standing… nothing would be stolen and/or no “mayhem” would happen. All of those things were accomplished successfully.
Was he/she given instructions on if a person they don’t recognize calls and asks for your cell number? If not, then it is their call. When I’m on vacation I would love to have someone respect that I don’t want to be disturbed. Very few things can’t wait until I get back.
But then again, I don’t use an alarm… I don’t even always lock my doors. I don’t carry pepper spray or any other weapon. I choose instead to use common sense and not live in fear of “What If” and especially not be worried about “What Didn’t happen but Could Have.” It has worked for me for my entire life
We used our dog walker as a house/dog sitter last year when we went to Italy and Cyprus for a month. Here are a couple thoughts:
I was in the alarm business for many years and even I wouldn’t want to accept responsibility for using somebody’s alarm system. The majority of problems with nuisance alarms, neighbor complaints, police responses, smoke detectors that can’t be silenced, etc., are because a “temporary user” wasn’t adequately trained in using the system. Want me to be in charge of your alarm system? There’s a $15/day surcharge for that.
The ONLY times I’d kick a house sitter’s ass would be if (1) they gave a caller my cell phone number, or (2) they texted me every time I got a call. I’d pay your guy $5 extra per day to ignore all the incoming calls, and my wife would have slipped him $20 extra to delete them before we got home. (“Sorry! We were out of town and didn’t get your message, so we didn’t get the invite to little Hugo’s pre-school graduation ceremony. I’m sure it was memorable!”)
I still don’t get why the friend who might drop dead at any moment doesn’t already have your cell number. If you’re that worried about possibly missing a call from him, wouldn’t it make sense to have him call the phone that travels with you and has a voicemail system from this millennium instead of a phone you’re often not near with outdated technology that can easily be accidentally erased? And I still can’t fault the guy for not giving out your cell number to someone who you chose not to give it to in the first place, or for not passing on a banal message like ‘got your postcard’.
Except when my alarm (installed by the prior owner) system broke I just cut enough wires that it stopped making noise. And eventually an electrician removed a lot of the extra phone wires that were making my reception suck.
