Dog Sitters in Okanagan Centre

Tricia

It was a pleasure to meet Teri and have her here with the mutts.  She brought her dog, Bandit.  He was great and got along well with Micha and Bean.  She stayed in touch while I was away with regular updates and left the house tidy.  Would absolutely invite her back.

Justine

We couldn’t have felt more comfortable leaving our apartment and our pets in the hands of Jenny & Mark. They were very communicative weeks in advance of the pet sit, and made sure they had all the information they needed before they arrived. We were impressed that they took the effort to arrive early, giving our rescue dog the opportunity to get to know them while we were there. This made leaving an absolute breeze.

While we were out of town we received regular updates on how they were all getting on, and we returned to a clean home & happy pets. We’d welcome Jenny & Mark back any time, as would Rusty & Juno!

Kelly

On January 16th Mollie had to be escorted off my property by the local Police. I received several urgent messages from neighbors who called police because Mollie was dragging mattresses out of my house and down to the street where she left them sitting at the bottom of my driveway. My neighbors also saw her throwing sheets and bedding outside over the back deck railing and we later learned she also caused considerable damage inside the house. She tore a permanent 3’ by 3’ metal HVAC filter cover out of the living room wall and put it in the bathtub in the master bedroom and filled it with water. 

The police waited for over five hours for Mollie to pack before they escorted her off the property. She left all the windows open, and the heat turned up. She left the house unlocked and completely unsecured.  It rained into the open windows for over a week, and it caused significant damage to the walls and floors. We found electric appliances running full speed in the bedroom.  Because it was January and we did not discover any of this until 9 days after she left, there was also a heating bill for over $475.00.  All of the damage Mollie caused is well documented and has been provided to the authorities.  Everything I write in this review is based on hard evidence.  Mollie has also refused to apologize and has not offered to contribute to any of the damage she caused.  

Right before the police got involved, Mollie sent me an email claiming that she “knows” I had malicious intentions and wanted to cause her harm.  She never once spoke to me about this.  The email said that she would not speak to me or leave my property unless I signed a confession she wrote stating that I knowingly exposed her to poisonous toxins in my house and intentionally withheld information from her such as the location of the hidden house key.  It takes a supreme level of pathological self-centeredness to imagine that someone in my position with so much at stake, who is in another country, would want to intentionally harm a housesitter in that manner. 

My house was professionally cleaned and free of pet odors before I left.  In the few days she was there, Mollie rearranged my furniture, criticized the professional cleaning people, and complained about my house not being up to her standards. She wanted me to replace all the carpets and mattresses, then immediately offered her services as a house cleaner for an hourly wage. She emailed me an unsolicited “assessment” of the house with her “recommendations” and an invoice charging me for her services that I did not acknowledge. She had her mail officially forwarded to my address, and told me that she refused to open any shipments unless they were addressed to her directly.  I had only just arrived at my destination and was working all day, then found this slew of crazy messages all over the place on four different platforms. I had not even been food shopping yet.  The next morning, I painstakingly responded to all her concerns, but she replied with a message asking how to clean out the dryer exhaust because it “collects toxins” and could “easily cause my house to burn down.”  This was wildly overwhelming, and she also would not communicate or respond to any of my suggestions or efforts to figure out what was going on. 

After looking back and reviewing all her messages, we believe that my cat must have urinated outside of the litter box, in the bedroom or on the bed after Mollie arrived.  I have to say that I honestly do not really blame him. Mollie was late and arrived at my house after we left for the airport, and 8 hours after that was her first message complaining about cat odor downstairs.  The entire saga of complaints and paranoia took off from there.  Mollie was simply unable to cope with what should have been an uncomplicated cat problem and something that could have easily been prevented since she was made aware of how to manage and avoid this very situation and had information in writing and my full attention at her disposal.  That is when she decided that I was trying to poison her, and when I contacted TH to report a safety concern in my house.  Then, she made the decision to behave destructively as I feared that she would.  It seems that Mollie overreacted, and I was left wondering if she had personal motives that she never shared regarding her intentions for residence on my property. 

Mollie had no right to do what she did in my house, and it has cost me a significant amount of time and money as well as further distress for my poor cats and the house sitters that briefly followed her who were unable to deal with the damage she left behind.  

The entire experience with Mollie was bizarre and terrifying.  As I write this, I still cannot believe what she did. It seems unreal. The end of Mollies stay at my house was very dramatic and she caused a lot of damage that was, based on her own admission, done intentionally.  However, I understand this was not the behavior of a balanced individual.  I am also aware that there is no excuse for such a stunning lack of empathy or for behaving vindictively for any reason.  If she had asked or responded, I would have done anything to help Mollie and I had already ordered new mattresses because at first, I took her at her word.  Then, I realized that I would never know what really happened even if I went home and inspected everything, which I have done at this point.   I did not enjoy writing this and I hope this never happens to anyone else. It was terrifying.