I have a friend who, years ago, asked another friend of hers to take care of her house and feed her cats for a couple of weeks.
The intended house-sitter went on a bender. He didn’t show up. He didn’t feed the cats. He didn’t call her to say he hadn’t fed the cats.
The cats were still alive when she got home – but barely. They recovered at the vet’s.
Me, I call a housesitter every couple of days, no matter how much I trust them. They could have had an emergency; and I don’t want to risk the cats not having food and water.
It seems to me that your friend actually did a pretty good job. Most people live their lives without house alarms; he may not have realized how seriously you take that issue. And people do all sorts of things about messages – you really need to spell out in detail, preferably written down, what you want done about answering or not answering the phone.
Yeah, if the message had been, “hey, I wanted to let them know I’m in the hospital again, and here’s my number there” I would expect the house sitter to make an effort to pass that along. But “hi, please let them know I said thanks for the post card.” just sounds super non-urgent.
I’ve had several house sitters over the years and have to say none of them were as good as your guy. One of them left the day before we got home, with no reachable phone number, the driveway gate locked, the key in the house, and my dog, dead, in a garbage bag in the garage (he was old and sick). Another infested my entire house with fleas, among other things. I would say you did very well out of it.
I’m fine with the alarm. I might not have turned it on, either. If I screw it up, the police will probably respond with guns drawn and there’s a good chance I’m in handcuffs till it’s cleared up.
If you were that serious about the alarm, you needed to have had actual training on it, including several cycles of turning on and off, and detailed instructions on false alarms and such.
I don’t mean to belabor this, but could you possibly expand upon the alarm. Because I think it might contribute to some of us (it certainly DOES for ME) not appreciating the level of your concern.
In 2 different threads, you posted:
All right. I can appreciate you bei8ng EXTREMELY MILDLY miffed about the house sitter not doing this one thing you expressly asked him to do. But do a lot of people turn on home alarms while they are in the house sleeping? (While we are at it - how prevalent are home alarms in your area? I can think of a grand total of 1 of my friends/family/neighbors whom I am aware has a house alarm.
I generally try to remember to lock my doors and any easily accessible windows. (In fact, as I posted elsewhere, I recently found a stolen car parked in my driveway, of a guy who was trying to burgle neighborhood homes.) But an alarm IN ADDITION TO good door and window locks seems to strike me as pretty much a “belt and suspenders” sort of thing.
You say the guy never even left the house over 3 weeks other than to go to the post office or bodega. What sort of “mayhem” do you expect where you live?
I’m not trying to criticize or mock you or anything. I seriously think this would help us understand your concern. And, if you aren’t able to explain it in a manner that an average person (well, aren’t we Dopers all above-average?) might understand, that might say something about the reasonableness of your concern.
The one time I’ve lived in a house with an alarm we were supposed to keep it on at all times, it was in fact stated in the leases. It was in Miami, a couple of blocks from the University of Miami’s campus. I think nobody took more than a couple of days to get used to it; the doors had enough locks and bolts that punching five keys in the little box with the blinky light was a completely minor step.
I think “a couple of days to get used to it” is normal, and I agree that if the owner cared a lot about the sitter using the alarm, they should have had the sitter arm and disarm it several times as practice, in addition to leaving clear written instructions. People who routinely use alarms probably don’t realize how intimidating they are to those of us who don’t.
Not only intimidating, but just seemingly superfluous in any but the most sketchy neighborhoods. I could just imagine it slipping my mind if it didn’t beep or something.
And re: the phone message:, OP says:
Could be easily answered similarly “it slipped his mind.”
If you are so concerned about R, is there a reason you don’t give him/her your cell #? Is it because of your poor cell reception in the house?
Apparently the house sitter had a slightly different idea of what was important than you. Most of the respondents here seem to think he adequately satisfied the primary functions you hired him for. Your concern with these 2 issues strikes most of us as somewhat unwarranted, but you are the best judge of what is important to you.
I STRONGLY feel it would be a VERY POOR choice to have your concerns over how this longtime friend served as a paid house sitter affect the quality of your mutual friendship. If it bothers you (as it clearly seems to), simply drop it, and don’t hire him to house sit in the future.
I would never hand out someone’s cell phone number to a stranger, but I wouldn’t answer someone’s home phone either. IMHO, OP has communication expectations that comfortably exceed the norm.
Okay, y’all are right. He was a good housesitter. He did a good job. All is well.
We have not, and will not, said a thing to him about being dissatisfied. I started the thread **because ** I wasn’t going to discuss any of this with him. I’ve noticed this before: people assuming that someone is making the same comments and asking the same questions IRL that they are on the boards. Sometimes the internet is a place for anonymous discussion, so meatspace can be kept free of conflict.
T is a **frequent ** guest in our house. Basically every night of many nights, Mr. Rilch has said, “Okay, I’ve turned on the alarm, so don’t open the doors.” So he knows it’s important to us.
Yes, we should have watched him set and disarm it a couple times before we left.
This is a farm. (We don’t work it ourselves; we lease it to a guy who lives down the road.) We have neighbors, but the house itself is remote, way off the main road. The alarm is mainly to let us know if someone gets in; police being summoned is a bonus.
There are two (small) colleges close by, plus a high school. When we started living here, we had more than one instance of carloads of students rolling down the lane, looking for a place to party. Beyond that, you just never know when someone might think, “This place is perfect! No one will hear her screaming…”
I’m still perplexed as to why T would *answer * the phone to someone he didn’t know.
R changed phones and transferred my landline number but not my cell. Guess that proves that everyone has these tiny lapses.
I can understand the concern about the alarm. When I had one, I got a massive discount on my renter’s insurance because of it. That discount was reflected in the small print and would surely have resulted in my not being covered if the alarm was left off at the time of a burglary or other problem. It’s just like with seat belts. In those areas where it’s the law to wear them, the insurance may not have to take care of your injuries unless you do.
Otherwise, I think he did a great job. For the most part what you are describing is a good gatekeeper. It sounds to me like Mr. Rilch is exactly the sort of person who needs that when he’s on vacation. The more detail-oriented, the more important it is to unplug from the details occasionally.
Those small details can leave you wondering what didn’t get taken care of though. I’m betting that’s the real focus here. If those small things had been handled perfectly you’d never question anything else. Now you are wondering.
House sitters shouldn’t be answering your phone. As far as the alarm goes, apparently your husband didn’t train him well enough. Like “let me see you set it in front of me, so I know you know how to do it.”
I have read through this whole thread, so I see that it’s been mostly played out, and that Rilchiam has acknowledged that he was a good housesitter and did a good job. But I do want to chime in to say that this comment jumped out at me.
[Personal anecdote] A few months ago, I left my dog alone all day, and paid a neighbor to stop in and feed/walk my dog. Midday, I tried to get in touch with the sitter, and couldn’t. After a few hours, I called her father, and he told me that his daughter was at work until 3:30. I flipped my shit. Called anyone I could think of who either had some way of getting into the house, or had the phone number of someone who might be able to get in. Reached a different neighbor and she was able to let my dog out.
I was in tears, and a friend of mine reassured me that she was sure my dog would be fine. The worst that would have happened is my dog would have peed on the carpet and I’d just clean that up. And she was right. Thing was, my husband had left me nine months prior, and this was my first time attempting to take a day trip and trust someone else with the dog. I was already extremely tensed up and emotional, and when there was an unexpected twist in these plans, my emotions were so high that I lost control of them. (FTR, it turns out the sitter had stopped in before she left for work in the morning, and then again after work, and never left my dog alone for more than a few hours.) [/end personal anecdote]
To get back to you, Rilchiam. If you have a very good friend who is dying, that’s probably elevating your stress levels and emotions, and lowering your tolerance of minor mistakes. What seems to other people as a minor detail slipping the house sitter’s mind was a major, major deal to you. So don’t be too hard on your house sitter. But don’t be too hard on yourself, either. It sounds like you’ve had a lot on your mind.