Understanding that Rover is more of a service provider directory than anything else I set up a meet and greet to go over the service I was looking for. This was booked as a housesit, not drop-in petsitting. I explained I needed someone who was going to spend signifiant time in the home, most especially on July 4th due to fireworks. I specifically said, "from mid-day on... Can you do that?" She responded in the affirmative. Elena took no notes, and said she had no questions. I'm kicking myself for ignoring this red flag. Her initial visit was at 11:05am on July 4th. The lapsed time from when she turned off the security system and reset it to depart was SIX MINUTES (yes, I have the receipts). In that time she took pictures of the dogs to send me and tell me how happy they were to see her. When I notice the incredibly short visit on my security system log I was worried she'd taken the dogs out for a walk in the heat of day, so checked the camera (which I had disclosed to her) to see my dogs standing by the door understandably confused about what had just happened. I was in the middle of a 12-hour drive to Central Texas, and almost turned around. I talked myself down and waited a couple of hours to see if maybe she just ran to the store or something. No. I texted after two hours asked when she planned to go back to the house? After a long delay she replied that she'd drop back in about 30 minutes, then come again later in the evening during fireworks. Not at all what we discussed during her interview. I called to discuss and she was completed confused at my dissatisfaction. It seems a 6-minute visit is what she finds sufficient. We had a thorough discussion during which she agreed to meet my expectations going forward. I gave her an out... told her I could find friends to come by if she couldn't meet our original agreement, but she insisted she could. As far as I know she did spend more time there for the next two days. I didn't bother monitoring the alarm system after that as she was now aware that I could track her time there - I was just still so upset and trying to figure out what to do. The alarm system camera records entry whenever the alarm is triggered. I have many recordings of Elena entering my home and completely ignoring my dogs. One especially heartbreaking one where one of my dogs tries to give her a toy and she just walks away. In every picture she sent the dogs were far away from her and looking stressed or not looking at her at all. One picture they were clearly huddled against each other and very upset. That one broke me. A small Army of friends came to the rescue so I could ask Elena to leave. I also cut my trip short by one day. For this three days of trauma I paid $300. I'll never use Rover again.

We are so thankful to have found Elena. She stayed in our home and took care of our pets while we were away for almost 2 weeks. Elena was respectful, easy to communicate with, and trustworthy. I was very hesitant and nervous about trusting anyone in our home with our pets, especially since one of our dogs is still a puppy & we were going away for so long. Elena really made us all feel like we were leaving our pets and our home in good hands. She even took our puppy to the dog beach for the first time! We came home to happy animals, a clean house, and she also took the time to water all of my plants while we were gone. We will definitely book Elena again and would recommend her to anyone looking for someone for a pet and house sitter.