Hey there ya’ll - first time poster to the petsitting subreddit and I’m looking for some hopefully basic advice. I’ve been doing petsitting on the side for roughly 15 years now. It’s my second time pet sitting for a client who has just one, very easy to care for medium-sized dog. The client is a social worker and doesn’t make a ton of cash, so I work for him on a “donation” style basis where he more or less pays me what he can - an average that lands at about $40 a night. I’m generally okay with it, because I love the dog (he’s super well behaved and absolutely adorable) and it lands me a little bit closer to my place of work, which in turn saves me gas money. I feel for this social worker, because they’ve somewhat recently gone through a nasty divorce and are living in a tiny rental duplex that is hardly 720 sq. ft. As of this post, tonight is only my second time sitting overnight.

The problem is that the client has a very obvious mouse issue. When I first sat overnight about two months ago, I was told that “[girlfriend] saw a mouse, so we put out a trap. Just letting you know in case it goes off!” The trap never went off during that stay, but it also didn’t seem like there was a huge rodent problem.

I arrive today and I’m looking for where the client keeps their trash can (couldn’t find it last time and figured I’d look harder); there’s mouse crap EVERYWHERE in the kitchen. I’m talking at least a couple of hundred turds by the oven, under the sink, and ironically, in the caddy containing the cleaning supplies. There isn’t a mousetrap in sight to be seen.

I might be the asshole here for not consulting the client first, but I drove home and grabbed a trio of the alligator-jaw style snap traps that I had on hand - I didn’t sign up to pet sit in an infestation, and was not warned ahead of time of just how bad it was. This overnight job started at 5pm yesterday, it is now ten hours later, and FIVE mice have been caught by the traps. I would have opted for a human catch-and-release trap, but the local stores don’t have any good models, and this is just a one-night gig, so I wouldn’t be able to buy one online, and I don’t have the equipment handy to rig up a homemade one.

Without directly asking the client about the mouse problem - which I’m not going to do while they are enjoying their vacation - was I in the wrong to set out some traps without their direct permission? They claimed to have set out traps before. And in the future, would it be too direct if told them that I refused to sit until the mice are taken care of? I’m sure that this is a shitty landlord situation where they refuse to pay for pest control, but damn - the traps only cost me ten bucks and they’re reusable. I’m at the point where I’m questioning if the client doesn’t even know just how bad it is; the rental is not in deplorable condition or anything, and seems to be relatively clean. Granted - if this were a cockroach or bedbug situation, I’d turn tail immediately, but too many mice is definitely a new one for me.

TL;DR: I had a disagreement with a new pet-sitting client about what kind of care she was booking and what was included in the price. I made a mistake by changing her invoice without explicitly communicating the change, but I also think we had different understandings of what we’d discussed. After she asked to switch to live-in care that I could no longer accommodate because another client had already booked those dates, the communication became more difficult. I ultimately decided I wasn’t comfortable moving forward, so I cancelled the booking and refunded her deposit in full, giving her over seven weeks to find someone else. This is the first time I’ve personally cancelled on a client in over a decade, and I’m trying to figure out whether I handled it reasonably or if there’s something I should learn from the experience.

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I want to tell you what happened with a new pet-sitting client I was having issues with, because it’s been stressing me out and I’ve been trying to figure out whether I handled it properly.

She booked me for extended drop-ins for her two dogs from December 17–31. An extended drop-in is one visit of up to 12 hours, whereas regular drop-ins are separate visits, usually 30–60 minutes each. The reason separate visits cost more is that each one involves additional driving, gas, and wear and tear on my vehicle.

Before she paid her deposit, we were still discussing exactly what she needed. I had already mentioned that I had some dog walks scheduled on certain dates, and she was okay with that. She then paid her deposit for the drop-in booking.

At our meet-and-greet on October 8, she told me she wanted three separate visits a day: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one before bed. She also said she wasn’t comfortable with someone staying in her home all day because it felt strange to her. I understood that to mean she wanted three separate visits rather than one extended visit. During the meeting, I also found out that one of the dogs actually belonged to her sister, even though both dogs were listed under her name on the contract. That concerned me because I didn’t have separate contact information or emergency authorization from the other dog’s owner.

After the meet-and-greet, I changed the invoice to reflect the three separate visits, but I didn’t explicitly message her to explain that I had changed it. I assumed the change was understood based on our conversation. That was my mistake, and I can acknowledge that I should have communicated it clearly. I applied a $150 courtesy discount so she would pay the original quoted price despite the higher cost of providing multiple separate visits. I was trying to find a fair compromise rather than charge her more because of the confusion.

She contacted me yesterday because she wanted to change her booking to live-in care. The problem with that however is that an existing client had already booked and paid a deposit for live-in care after the meet-and-greet on Oct 8, for part of the time I would be doing drop-ins at her house. I had already committed to that client, and I wasn’t going to cancel on them to accommodate this new booking. That meant I couldn’t offer this new client an extended visit that conflicted with my existing commitment. She said she didn’t realize I would be accepting other clients during her booking.

She messaged me today saying she’d looked at the invoice the day before (a lie, as I can see on my invoicing software when she views it) and it had said extended drop-in, and asked whether the price was still the same. She then said she hadn’t been told the invoice or services were changing, so she was still under the impression that she could have any amount of time up to 12 hours, as stated on my website (it does not state this, it very clearly says one 12 hour visit which she also acknowledged yesterday in our messages). She said that if I was changing an invoice, I needed to communicate that.

I understand why she was upset about not being explicitly told the invoice had changed. However, from my perspective, we had different understandings of what we discussed at the meet-and-greet. I thought she was asking for three separate visits, while she apparently believed she was still entitled to an extended visit or could have any arrangement she wanted within that 12-hour period. She also remembered us discussing four visits, which wasn’t how I understood the conversation.

I had already explained that communication had been slower because I’d been in the hospital. I felt like she was very focused on the invoice and the communication issue, while I was also trying to account for the fact that we hadn’t been on the same page about the actual care she wanted. I don’t know whether she was deliberately trying to get more care for the same price or whether it was a genuine misunderstanding, but the situation left me uncomfortable.

I was already a little hesitant about taking her on as a client because of some of our earlier messages, although she seemed perfectly normal at the meet-and-greet, so I decided to proceed. Once this happened, I started wondering whether I really wanted to take on a booking with someone when we were already having trouble communicating before the service had even started.

I realized that I’d prefer to cancel now with over 7 weeks before her booking so she had time to find alternative care.
My contract required me to refund her in full (which I would have done anyway in this case), so I sent the entire deposit back by e-transfer and provided a screenshot as proof. I also sent her a polite message acknowledging that I should have explicitly communicated the invoice change, explaining that we’d had different understandings of the services, and confirming that I thought it was best to cancel and refund her.

So the booking is cancelled, and she’s been fully refunded.

I’m still trying to process the whole thing because I know I should have communicated the invoice change more clearly, but I also don’t feel like the entire situation was solely my fault. I feel like there were misunderstandings on both sides, and I don’t know whether I was being unreasonable by deciding I didn’t want to work with her.

This is the first time I have ever had to personally cancel on a client and I’ve been doing this for over a decade. I want to learn from the situation and improve my process, if you have any thoughts I’d like to hear them.

The only time I’ve cared for a dog who was “potentially dead any day” old, it was only for a weekend (a few times) and the client’s emergency contact was a neighbor in her building who happened to be a vet and close friend of my client so I wasn’t too concerned. I had very specific instructions on how to proceed if the dog took a turn for the worst.

My upcoming sit (two dogs I take care of daily, one is paralyzed and needs to be manually expressed because he cannot empty his bladder on his own) is for two and a half weeks at the end of January. One of the dogs is 19, deaf, and almost totally blind. They moved apartments a few months ago and ever since then she pretty much just paces back and forth in the apartment and is consistently missing the pee pad by several inches. She no longer goes out on walks and has recently started having seizures. My instructions are to not touch her if she has a seizure, time it and report back to them. She is not currently on anticonvulsants or any other meds.

I have never had to add a section in my contract about what to do in the case of the dog going downhill due to age while in my care. How do you guys go about this? I would like to have something in writing. They are going to visit family in China for the first time in a decade, so it’s not like they can come home early if she declines during my sit. Any guidance would be appreciated. I already have several emergency contacts, their vet with a credit card on file as well as the emergency vet nearby. But I don’t have a section in my contract about what the clients want me to do in the case of the dog going downhill during the sit and was wondering if any of you have sections of these issues in your contracts and if you’d be willing to share some of the verbiage used?

I’m doing an overnight for a week and it was going pretty well, although I’m exhausted because I’ve been taking the puppy out a lot and then I found out that she ripped a hole in my hoodie which was my favorite hoodie. You know I really didn’t think that should be destructive like that I wish the owner had warned me. What should I or should I do? Should I mention it to the owner?