I recently had a client contact me about sitting her two dogs a few miles from me. She was definitely a helicopter mom in messages, so I prepared myself for that before the meet and greet. She confirmed the booking before the meet and greet ever happened, and I have yet to have a bad experience, so I accepted the confirmation.

At the meet and greet, the owner was okay. She was a little overbearing, rambled a lot. She showed me photos of her family/grandchildren, spent 10+ minutes talking about her deceased ex-husband, and had two of her adult children come over to meet me. The entire meet and greet was a little cringeworthy, but nothing that I was uncomfortable with.

However, at the end of the meet and greet, she lets me know that for the first day and night of my house sitting, she was going to be staying home. She would stay out of the way and would just watch to see how I did with the dogs. She also requested that I come over twice more before the stay starts (end of June) to spend some more time with the dogs. She also mentioned that her son (35-40 year old man who just moved out of the house) has a key and will be stopping by a few times during the day to check in on me.

Now I’m uncomfortable, but the request is already booked and I’m not sure how to deal with potentially declining this stay. Am I overreacting? What do I do if I want to deny this request?