Cat Sitters in Whitworth

David

Negligent pet care by Elsa who abandoned the pet sit because she did not receive financial compensation for her stay.

Main issues (All are well documented and submitted to zeewoi):

1) The verbal abuse directed towards me by Elsa that drove me to emotional breakdown on the day she arrived for the sit.
2) Elsa asking for monetary compensation of 200 Swiss Francs for a luxury hotel stay to blackmail me for the accusations that I did not respond quickly enough to the front door when she arrived.
3) The neglect and mistreatment of our pets (More evidence given below). One pet rabbit Leo with feces stuck to his face, urine stained fur, and matted fur on his feet. Our other pet rabbit Roxy who was lethargic, not eating much, and not drinking much when I returned home. She stopped eating, drinking, urinating, and pooping not long after and almost had to go for an emergency veterinarian visit.
4) The mistreatment of our home. Elsa placing a dirty toilet seat and a training potty from the bathroom onto our 3 year old daughter's clean bed, along with an old dirty guitar case. Pans and cooking utensils with dried on food not cleaned. Deep scratches put into our non-stick pan and not cleaned properly. Elsa took perishable food from the fridge and pantry and placed it out on the balcony to just leave it sit there.
5) Abandoning the pet sit. Elsa left our apartment without giving us notice, with no handover at all, and with absolutely no communication for a week straight at the end of the sit. Elsa left the key to our home in a publicly accessible area upon departing our apartment and did not inform me she did so. There was no status update for our pets if they were fed or given their medicine when I arrived home. Elsa left all the pet cages and pet toilets dirty.

The full details:

The housesit did not start off well to begin with. The pet sitter and I agreed upon a one hour long window for meeting at our apartment. I was working that day, but I had my phone next to me at all times with the volume on and watching the clock. Half way into our meeting time I had an emergency call from work with my boss, which I took on my work laptop using my headset. At around 10 minutes to the end of the hour or so, I received two texts from Elsa on WhatsApp stating that she had arrived, but she said I did not answer my door. I saw the texts from her about 5 to 6 minutes after she sent them. Note, she never called me once, and later on when I asked her why she didn't attempt to call me, she did not give me an answer. I did not hear her knock on my door or ring my doorbell. I went outside immediately after seeing the texts and found Elsa very angry with me. She claimed she had been waiting 20 minutes outside and that she eventually got into the building and rang my doorbell and knocked on the door but that I did not answer. I have no evidence to corroborate her story. I had my headset on during my emergency call, but the volume was not loud. I don't know how I could have missed her knocking and ringing the bell. Regardless, I gave Elsa 100% the benefit of the doubt and I assumed full responsibility. I profusely apologized to Elsa non-stop but she did not accept my apology. I explained my emergency call with work (I'm in pharmaceutical vaccine manufacturing and sometimes urgent calls happen that require immediate attention) but Elsa did not care that it was an honest mistake on my part (again, assuming she's 100% telling the truth). Instead of being empathetic, Elsa created a public scene outside of my apartment building. Elsa refused to come inside and suggested she might not continue with the pet sit (Which is a breach of terms. She cannot unilaterally decide to end a sit in progress). Elsa began to attack me in a dehumanizing and insulting manner. She said things like, 'You're an engineer, but you don't know how to use a phone.' and 'What, you don't know the sound of your own doorbell?' Elsa then insulted the welcome package that I put together. She said that it was too long, detailed, and repetitive and that she was personally insulted by it.  Even then, I still apologized to her. Elsa then asked me how much it would cost me to rebook my flight, which I was leaving for in less than 2 hours. She stated it as a threat, as if I might need to rebook because she would refuse to do the sit. Elsa then kept asking "How are you going to make things right for me?" Suggesting some type of compensation would be in order. I just kept saying, I don't know how I can make it up to her and that I was very sorry, but Elsa was very persistent that I come up with an idea to remedy the situation. At that point, I had spent the past 8 days working, getting the place ready for her, supporting my wife and kids, eating only one meal a day, and sleeping 2 to 3 hours a day. I couldn't handle her personal attacks any longer with threats that I might not get to go on vacation to see my kids who I hadn't seen in months. Elsa broke me, and I started crying uncontrollably. A short while after that, Elsa calmed down, came inside, and told me she would agree to continue with the sit (Again, that's not her lone decision to make). After showing her everything and answering her questions, I got ready to leave for my flight. It's then that Elsa asked me for compensation to remedy the situation. To make it up to her for not answering the door quickly enough. As I was walking out the door, Elsa asked me if I would give her 200 CHF (Swiss Francs) to put her in a luxury hotel stay after the pet sit finished. I gave her a non-committal answer at that time. I did not say yes or no. It is a violation of zeewoi policy for Elsa to ask for compensation for a pet sit. So I did not say yes, but I felt so threatened by her and worried so much that Elsa would abandon my pets if I told her no. So I said we would talk about it later. Later on around the middle of the sit via WhatsApp, Elsa reiterated her ask of me for 200 Swiss Francs to compensate her for the pet sit. Again, out of fear of her abandoning the pet sit while I'm on vacation, I never gave Elsa a yes or no answer during that text conversation. I just told her I would discuss it with my wife and then hoped she would not bring the topic up any further. But then things got worse. I think because I never gave her an answer, Elsa left our apartment unannounced and abandoned the pet sit. I don't even know when she left. The last time Elsa spoke to me was Sunday, March 31st. She asked me when I would be arriving back in Switzerland. I replied to her on Monday, April 1st that I would arrive back home between 4pm and 5pm on April 7th. That was the last time she spoke with me before I returned home. Elsa never informed me when she was going to leave the apartment, how I would get the apartment key back, what I needed to know about my pets, or any details at all. Elsa just disappeared. When I returned home, there was no one at the apartment. The door was locked, but I didn't know where Elsa put the key. I messaged her on both WhatsApp and the zeewoi app, but I got no replies. Eventually, after searching everywhere, I found the key sitting in a shoe outside the apartment door. Locking the door and leaving the key in a public place, disappearing, and not telling the owner any of these details is not acceptable. Upon entering our apartment when I returned home, I immediately checked on our bunnies. During the two weeks while I was away, Elsa provided no more than 3 updates on our bunnies. Mostly in the first week away. When I came home, I discovered our elder bunny Leo, who has special needs and requires extra care and handling, had dried feces stuck to his face, urine soaked fur on his entire belly and feet, and matted fur on the bottom of his feet . His cage was a complete mess. Elsa did not follow any of my instructions for cleaning his cage. He's supposed to have a soft clean padded bed lining his cage, which I provided to Elsa. It's needed because Leo has arthritis and needs the soft bedding. She never even used it once in two weeks, as all the bedding was in the same spot and order as the day I left for vacation, even though I told her, instructed her, showed her, and provided it to her. Instead, Elsa just threw a bunch of wood chips in the bottom of his cage, which was covered in urine and feces that my bunny was forced to lay in. Then, our other bunny Roxy. Her litter box was just thrown in the center of the cage, with more wood chips thrown around the cage. There was dried urine all over the bottom of the cage and her toilet was dirty. Elsa didn't wipe the cage once in two weeks. I gave very detailed instructions on exactly how to care for our bunnies, and Elsa completely disregarded it all. I provided detailed worded instructions along with instructional videos on YouTube which she didn't watch once (Not one view showed on the video analytics). I answered all questions Elsa had during the arrival handover and she never indicated that she had any concerns or misunderstanding. Elsa never once contacted me during the sit with any issues and only asked one question, which was where she could find the dishwasher detergent. I found one of our plastic laundry balls in the living room, left for the bunnies to eat, which they did (not chew... eat... they ingested the plastic). Then, for reasons that I can't possibly explain, Elsa took my 3 year old daughter's dirty potty training toilet and dirty practice toilet seat out of the bathroom and put them on top of my daughter's bed where they sat on top of her stuffed animals, clean clothes, and clean sheets and blankets. That's so disgusting and unsanitary. Additionally, she took my old dirty and dusty guitar case from the living room and also put it on top of my daughter's clean bed. Elsa has no reason or right to be in my daughter's bedroom at all, let alone to put dirty bathroom fixtures on my little daughter's clean bed. Additionally, Elsa left a wet urine stain from one of our pets on the carpet and covered it with something instead of cleaning it up. It was still wet when I came home and I only discovered it because I moved the pad that was covering it. Finally, Elsa took fresh perishable food from our pantry and refrigerator and placed it outside on the balcony. Pans, knives, and utensils she used had food stuck on them, but she placed them back as if they were cleaned.

We have had a lot of pet sitters watch our loved ones over the years. Elsa is by far the worst pet sitter my family has ever experienced. The level of her care was worse than awful. She was neglectful, callous, and selfish. Elsa should not even be allowed on this platform for the safety of all pets.

Deepa

Blake was a joy to have stay with my cat, Dorian, and she's done 2 sits for me so far! She's great at communicating and listening to instructions, and she sent me daily updates and photos and left my place neat and tidy. Would definitely have her sit again!