BEWARE! – poor communicator, immature, and irresponsible. I should’ve listened to my gut when I hired Emma. I couldn’t quit place, but something didn’t seem 100%. As our dog warmed up to her quickly I thought I would give her a chance. Our normal sitter (who is amazing) wasn’t available, so we hired Emma for house sitting. I laid out a detailed schedule for our dog, cat, bird, and fish with times of day to do what was needed for each pet and walked her through it during the meet and greet. At that time, she pointed out the doorbell camera and asked if there were others. We informed her that it was the only one and showed her how to lock the doors and arm the security system if she should choose to do so. However, we live in a very safe neighborhood where nothing ever happens, and the neighbors keep an eye on each other’s house for any suspicious activity. As our doorbell camera records all activity, I was checking it regularly and noticed that she hadn’t taken our dog out for his potty break in the morning or at night even though we told her explicitly to not take him out back at night. The first day she left a few times for a short period which wasn’t too big of a deal. The second day, she was gone for four hours during a time when the bird should’ve been getting her daily exercise in the pool cage with a fan blowing on her cage. Since that is what I was expecting and it was now past the time she should be brought back inside since the sun hits her cage by then, I reached out to see if she was there. I got no response from her. As I was concerned about the safety of our bird, I reached out to the neighbor for help. She wasn’t home, so she asked her husband to go check to see if the bird was outside since Emma’s car was not in the driveway. I immediately sent Emma a message to let her know so she would not be alarmed. Fortunately, the bird was inside safe in her cage which is great, but that means that the instructions Emma agreed to were not followed. She claimed that she was getting her car fixed and that her battery had died. I thought, “okay… sounds reasonable…” I let her know that I was expecting her to be there more often and to follow the schedule I left. She told me that she only agreed to overnight stays and not 24/7 care. However, I selected (and she agreed to) house sitting. She said she had to take care of other animals and had already set up visits. I thought, “fine makes sense” but it would’ve been nice if she would have disclosed that to me up front. Nevertheless, she agreed to be there more often going forward. That same night after she agreed there to be more often, she left for 3 and ½ hours. She didn’t get back until 11:00 at night even though she said that she goes to bed at 9:00 pm which our pets are accustomed to. So that means either she didn’t take our dog for his potty break before going to bed or she took him out back in the dark even though we asked her not to. She claimed that she was filling out college applications with her mother. The next day she sent me 2 brief updates which I received but didn’t reply to. Then the next day I received a shocking message first thing in the morning. She said that she discussed our situation with Rover and decided it was best that I find a new sitter. She gave me absolutely no explanation as to why. I spoke to the Rover representative who said that she didn’t feel safe In the house because a man was coming and going from the house and that I had cameras in the house watching her ever move. That is completely fabricated and not true. The only person that was there was my 75 year old military veteran who once worked in the White House protecting the president who was only there the one time when she wasn’t to ensure our bird was safe since she failed to respond to my message. If she was so concerned about her safety, it’s odd that she never activated the security system that we showed her how to use. She then later told me that I was the one that had a lack of communication which is absolutely ridiculous as I not only laid out a detailed schedule for her, I revisited the expectations with her. She commented that I failed to respond to her the one day even though she was providing regular updates. I hardly call a couple of pictures of one of the pets regular updates. She sent not one single picture of the bird, fish or the cat. If you check her profile, she has 15 pictures total from all of the animals that were left in her care. Meanwhile, there was still 3 days left in her stay that I had to find alternative care. Hardly the peace of mind that I was promised. Emma is immature, irresponsible, and a liar. Please don’t trust her with the care of your animals.

Emma was the perfect dog sitter for us. Don’t hesitate to book her. She was very communicative and spent plenty of time with our dogs. She took care of them meticulously and followed all care instructions.