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For House Sitting: On the last day, do you stay until the owners ask you to? Or do you have a set "checkout" time?

Good afternoon!

I have been struggling with this for a while now. I know that Rover is meant to be a 24 hour service for overnight house sitting. I did not realize this when I began using Rover, so my service has been sort of "whatever you need, I'm your girl" because I wanted to keep potential clients happy. I then started to feel taken advantage of (indirectly of course, all my clients are great) because I would arrive (for example) on day 1 around 11am, then on day 5 when I'm supposed to go back home the client asks me to stay for their dogs until 7pm because their flight doesn't land until 9pm. Obviously this requires me to stay longer than the "24 hour" service window, because I should be able to leave around 11am on day 5.

My question is, is it normal to cater to what a client wants if it keeps them happy, for free? To be honest, most days I have other things going on that I'd like to be attending whether personal or other clients' requests. I hate feeling like I'm greedy for money if I were to ask someone to pay me for x amount of extra hours.

The other idea I've been considering is to have a standard "checkout" time like 12pm. In certain situations I would of course extend those hours if my client needed me until 5pm and could not find anyone else to help them out. The problem is that I would need to introduce this to my current clients, they are all repeats... do you think they could take this in a bad way? I'm worried it would come off as "I want to get paid for less work" when that isn't the case. I just have other places to be!

What are your thoughts, or how do you handle your business?

I'm sorry that this question is all over the place. Thanks for any help in advance.

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Karen R.

Book a Stay
Chicago, IL

I thought I would break this one down:

> is it normal to cater to what a client wants if it keeps them happy, for free?

Absolutely not if it involves staying at their home for 6+ hours unpaid. The way you handle this is, when the client asks you to stay longer, tell them you would be happy to extend the stay and will make an adjustment in the invoice before they pay.

>To be honest, most days I have other things going on that I'd like to be attending whether personal or other clients' requests. I hate feeling like I'm greedy for money if I were to ask someone to pay me for x amount of extra hours.

When you are house sitting, you are not required to stay in the house 24/7. You are allowed to go out, do things and come back. Of course, if the sitting location is inconvenient, that would affect your ability to "do other things." But overall you should not feel greedy for wanting to be compensated for your time. This is a business. You are not doing this as a favor to these people.

I would need to introduce this to my current clients, they are all repeats... do you think they could take this in a bad way?

Possibly, but it all depends on how you introduce it to them. You might want to say that you've needed to do that because of other clients. While you don't mind a couple of hours over, some people have expected far longer (don't be specific) and that it went well beyond Rover's 24-hour guideline. Be sure to mention that. A satisfied customer isn't going to begrudge you an extra $30 or so to stay for an entire day.

Comments

Hi, Karen! Thank you for your response. Regarding the fact that I'd like to be able to leave during stays- I meant that instead of waiting around on the last day (unpaid for the extra hours), I'd like to be able to just leave at the appropriate time so I can move on to the next thing.

Hailey L.

I do leave during my stays during the week. But your answers to the other questions ended up still answering this one too. Thanks again.

Hailey L.

That's great. Since you do come and go, you could always just return later in the day to take out the dog and feed it, without waiting for the people to come home at 7pm. But I would charge for the return visit, at say, a drop-in rate.

Karen R.

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Sarah P.

Apologies in advance for the novel I'm about to write-- I honestly am so relieved to see this comment because I have recently been feeling severely taken advantage of. I likewise tend to silently struggle with this and seem to have this natural response to an owner's unfair expectation that's like "sure I'll do that thing you asked me no questions asked, whatever makes your life easier!" and then quickly realize that I have every right to be compensated for the extra time/going out of my way. I'm talking "your dog ruined my entire front door scratching during the singular hour we were away for the entire day, but you told me you couldn't believe he would do that and I immediately backed down and said we'll just take care of it".... and proceeded to apologize to the owner for some reason... ugh. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like a lot of the people who sign up for Rover have the same outgoing, people-pleaser demeanor and it's unfortunately not always the best trait when it comes to running a personal business or offering services.

I'm still working on this but I've noticed that it's a lot less intimidating to address these issues with clients when you introduce a bit of math or make it sound like a "policy" you've been forced to stick to. Example: this past week, we had a dog booked for a Saturday-Sunday overnight stay, and the owner took my "I'm flexible with drop-off/pick-off, so you can text me a day or two before if something changes or you don't know your exact plans yet" and SERIOUSLY ran with it-- as in tried to pay $30 for a Saturday morning 7 AM drop-off - a Sunday night 9 PM pick-up. I get that Rover operates on the 24 hr. = 1 night of boarding scale, but I can't imagine anyone who thinks $30 is a fair price for what amounts to the entire weekend. I was really nervous about addressing this with the client mainly because I had already put my foot in my mouth when I chose to be overly accommodating without thinking it through (yet again... ugh). I was so pleasantly surprised that when I kept it number-y and just responded by saying "9 PM is fine for pick-up, but we've recently had some clients get upset and not understand why 1 night of boarding would equal 7 AM Saturday drop-off- 7 AM Sunday pick-up, and we even provide a good amount of wiggle room to be fair. Typically, we won't charge for an additional stay if you are able to pick-up within 30 hours (AKA pick-up your pet by 12 PM Sunday), but we have to consider the amount of extra care that goes into keeping a dog for 38 hours. Unfortunately, the owner responded by asking if 5 pm was ok and if that ... (more)

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Cari C.

I always discuss my arrival and departure time at the M&G to set expectations on both sides. I run my house sitting service the same way I do my boarding service. If there is a difference of 4-8 hours between dropoff/arrival time and pickup/departure time I charge $10. If the difference is 8-12 hours I charge $20. Anything over 12 hours gets another night's charge. I don't mind staying a few hours over, especially if they are flying home, but anything more than that I deserve to be compensated.

As far as your existing clients, just tell them that you are changing your policies and going forward you will charge $X for time required over 24 hours. Figure out what you want to charge and stick with it. Other retail and service businesses raise their rates so don't feel bad about raising yours.

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For House Sitting: On the last day, do you stay until the owners ask you to? Or do you have a set "checkout" time?

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