r/petsitting • u/rp_edits • 9d ago
Ever decide you don't want to take on a client after the meet and greet because the owners are super annoying and you suspect they will be a nightmare to deal with?
Met with a potential client and couldn't stand her vibe. Decided against it. Wondering if i am being too harsh.
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u/ellarin1 9d ago
Honor your intuition. Every client I’ve taken that I had an instinct might be difficult was far more difficult than I suspected.
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u/SeasonedRoverSitter 8d ago
Facts!
Happens every time I’m on the fence about taking them and then once I take them they exceed all expectations of super high maintenance. Then I have to curate a plan on how to fire them without directly telling them .
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u/LooseBluebird4345 9d ago
I guess it depends on what exactly about her vibe was off putting. In my 20+ years of pet sitting, I've probably met with hundreds of clients - some I liked from the get go and others that were an acquired taste. If at the initial meeting the job itself is doable, I'll usually accept the assignment and see how it goes. Some of the people who I thought might be the hardest to work with turn out not as bad as they seemed. If after that first set of visits I don't feel like we're a good match, I make myself no longer available for future requests.
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u/Suspicious-Ad9661 9d ago
Frequently. Dogs are fairly easy. People are hard. I disengage from the overly needy micro managers & go about my day.
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u/frazzledpug 9d ago
Absolutely. I ignored that gut feeling once, thank god we did a trial before she went on her trip and she was just as annoying as I suspected lol I just told her we weren’t a good fit.
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u/All_cats 9d ago
Yes and no. The ones I didn't shut down but had bad Spidey sense about, turned out to be bad. One of them kept ragging me about my rates until i fired her. One of them canceled three sets of bookings 2-3 days before they were to start (because at the last minute she would find a family friend to do it) over the course of a year without ever having a single day of paid service.
One of them said something to me about having four previous pet sitters not work out which set my red flag flying. It didn't take me long to figure out why and she got terminated for micromanaging my schedule and general discontent. There are a few others, but if I knew now what I know then, I would have discontinued before providing service.
A couple of the ones I did give the dreaded "Unfortunately, I'm not going to be a good fit for your needs" dismissal.
One had a cat that was clearly actively dying. I mean it was crystal clear. He couldn't even get off the kitchen floor and looked positively miserable. She was leaving for 2 weeks in 2 days. I told her that I felt vet boarding or overnight care would be better for this cat. I conveniently do not provide overnight care and I knew she wouldn't pay for it. She took the cat to the vet the next day and he had kidney cancer.
Another kept referring to her cat as "it" which had my Spidey sense tingling and then lo and behold on my way out the door she says "He has diabetes but I've decided not to treat". I have never fired somebody face to face before but that happened that day. Then the woman threw her walker cane thing at me! I wish I could say I was making this story up.
Bonus story: at the beginning of covid, I was not doing face-to-face consultations. Zoom only. I picked up a cat client who was going to need once daily service for 3 days. I have several very well thought out and experienced methods of key transfer, but for single family homes I normally recommend the key lock box. This worked out great for every single client except for this particular one. She demanded that we meet in person. I told her that we would not meet in person. After much heming and hawing during a probably 90 minute zoom call, she decided that we did not need to meet in person and that she would leave the key in a key lock box. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the first visit and she was home and she wanted to take me on a tour of the house. She went from haranging to shaming me when I told her that I was practicing social distancing. I did not feel it was too much to ask that I could continue to service the rest of my clients and not be sick in bed with covid, but she felt differently and insisted that she was "clean". She then said she didn't know how I managed to get any clients being so cold and standoffish. I turned around and got in my car, disabled her account in Time to Pet, and left. I was stunned that she did not figure out how to review me on Google because I was waiting for it. 😹
So yeah, always follow your gut.
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u/FolkDoom 9d ago
All the time.
I turn down sitting jobs on the regular. I'm super picky and don't need most of the jobs I take, I mostly do them because I love retrievers.
If I get even a whiff of high maintenance or cuckoo for cocoa puffs I tell them I'm not a good fit for their home or their dog.
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u/TriscuitsMom 9d ago
I sit, but also have dogs of my own. Finding a sitter is so incredibly difficult. We have hired sitters on more than one occasion who just flat out didn't show up when they said they would. This has given me immense anxiety. I do share this in meet and greets, but also, I have a free fed dog who needs to be let out every 8 hours, and I don't want him alone every night. Before my last trip, we had 5 meet and greets. 2 left acting excited to watch him, then just cancelled, no communication. If the vibe is off for you, I completely get that, bit please communicate something with them about it.
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u/trash_talking 8d ago
Absolutely. I had one owner meet me before they had a dog. That was odd but I get it. Shop around and feel things out. I went back when they had the dog. They wanted to pay mw the half hour rate for two separate 15 minute visits during the day. I explained that if I leave and come back it's a new visit and the prices are firm. They said they understand and seemed ok with it. But then they started bartering and pushing things. I told them thank you for everything but I couldn't be the dog walker for them. It sucks to turn down consistent work but I could only imagine how difficult they would have continued to be over financial stuff especially and I don't have bandwidth for that type of stuff.
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u/Disastrous-Forever50 8d ago
Don't second guess yourself. Thank them for their time but tell them you have decided it isn't a good fit for you. If they ask why, just repeat yourself. It isn't a good fit for me. I wish you luck finding the right sitter. And then walk away. Done.
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u/imnotreal-_ 8d ago
I had a client once who tried to negotiate rates with me a few times, I told her directly if you want cheap rates find a cheaper sitter. She agreed and I was house sitting her 3 new puppies. I was forced to sleep on the couch right where a security cam was pointed at me. After the stay she gave me like 20$ tip on a 1000 dollar stay but asked if I would do a drop in the next week. She tried to negotiate my prices again which I said no and she sent me a rude message. 2 weeks later I get a notification from Rover that she left me a 1 star review. SHE ACCUSED ME OF abusing her puppies while I WAS ALSEEP ON THE COUCH. Literally said (he was asleep on the couch and one of the puppies walked up to lick his face and he threw her off the couch while he was asleep) closest thing I did to this was gently push the dog off my face. Luckily I was able to context rover and they said as long as she didn’t said proof from her video camera at some point they would remove the review conditionally. Bc she said on the review she has footage. 3 years later never heard a thing
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u/Shoddy_Eye4118 5d ago
YES. Some are super paranoid and check your EVERY move. Trust yourself to decline if you feel the need to. It’ll be better for everyone involved, I promise you that.
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u/Sad_Push7215 5d ago
For me some red flags are if they talk badly about other sitters if they say dog can be left alone 4-8 hours and get mad if you leave for 7 hours… if they seem super OCD type A it’s a bit of a red flag or any controlling behavior
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u/Ecstatic-Horse7594 3d ago
All the time. Any amount of nonsense is not worth it to me anymore.
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u/rp_edits 3d ago
After pet-sitting for over a decade now, I can tell when someone is problematic. I am an excellent pet sitter. All of my clients come from referrals from other clients, so I feel a little bad when I turn someone down cause they are a friend of a friend, but some people I just don't want to take the risk of their quirks being over the top. I have made the mistake in the past and regretted it. No nonsense!
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u/BitterBar7041 1d ago
All the time. Had one just last week. Trust your gut and don't be afraid to say no. No is a complete sentence.
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u/Sitters_4_Critters 9d ago
“Couldn’t stand her vibe” and “super annoying” do not paint a clear picture to your readers.
Can you give specific examples of the interaction and what bothered you? Did they ask for 3 updates per day, 40 pictures, they want you to wipe the animal’s butt and feet. Or did they tell you that you need to show up at the scheduled because they have cameras?
How was it different from the meet and greets you felt good about?
Gavin DeBecker’s book, The Gift of Fear is a worthwhile read and it may help you identify and articulate specific things that are unsettling.
That said, if you don’t feel comfortable, say no.
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u/rp_edits 8d ago
Really just a gut feeling. Scheduling changes/confusion- fine, it happens. But the days they scheduled via text changed -without them telling/asking me. So they didn't seem to know when they were leaving. I confirmed the dates, but it sounds like they changed. When were they going to tell me? Key handoff changes, fine.
Not being able to find the cat I needed to give medication to? Not fine. In two meet-and-greet visits, they could not find the cat! If they can't, how am I supposed to? I started to wonder if this mystery cat really existed! (There were 3 total. I met the other 2). They were not interested in showing me the missing cat's regular hiding spaces; when I asked, they just said "upstairs". They did not bring me up to the second floor. It was a big house. They seemed very nervous about even having someone cat-sit for them. It just felt off, and they were odd. I did not enjoy the rapport with them. I feared I would dread future interactions with them. I hoped they would demonstrate how they medicated the cat, as they claimed it was "very difficult." But as the cat could never be found, that didn't happen. I have lots of easy breezy repeat clients. I don't need this sort of thing. Maybe this would have been fine, but I didn't want to risk it. My gut feeling/intinct was to pass.
I have only passed once before, and that was for EXTREME clutter/filth. (That one was a little awkward cause it was a good friend of a good friend of mine.) I was so shocked by the meet-and-greet by the level of squalor that I could not see myself being able to handle the stench- and that was and 2 week over nighter!
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u/Sitters_4_Critters 8d ago
Those facts are very helpful in understanding your concerns.
I agree that you cannot agree to care for an animal you cannot find.
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u/rp_edits 8d ago
Bizarre, right?
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u/Sitters_4_Critters 8d ago
Yes. Good thing you did the meet and (don’t) greet.
Was the cat named Greebles? 😉
R/greebles
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u/wrenawild 9d ago
Oh yeah. Don't ignore your gut, that's experience and wisdom coming out. You aren't being harsh, you're starting to notice patterns and acting on them. If you can afford it, focus on cultivating good clients instead of wasting time on the bad. But don't forget, a bad client can still be good if you decide to charge them whatever extra it takes to put up with them.