The Housesitting Company

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Reviews

1. Rohini Narayan ★☆☆☆☆

   WORST SERVICE EVER! This company does not listen or acknowledge their customers concerns but are busy covering their sitters wrong doing, lies. Sitter was hardly home to be with our dog. With excuses of forgetting medicine at home as told by the office lady Milly who has the worst customer service experience. Bigson, the sitter told me he went out for a bit as he had skin allergy but Milly had a different story to justify Bigson. When we hired this sitter,(my son, a doctor, interviewed him, he was told by Bigson he took this opportunity to study in peace and quiet and would be around our dog during the day and night. But once he started, we came to know he had a full time 7am-7pm job. Our dogs feeding time went from between 6pm-6.30pm to 7.30pm. When quieried, office lady Milly supported Bigson. They dont have any recordings of the interview, yet they only listen their sitters. I told them my son has a totally different version of the interview but no, they are always right. This lady iMlly yells and screams at you and not prepared to listen to anything you say. We decided to pull out as no point having a sitter who is hardly there. I was told the her boss will call me on Monday to discuss. The owner send an email covering the Sitters lies and only offered to refund half of our money. We booked for 20days and the sitter was there for 3days (hardly, there) with condition being: no arguments or there will be NIL refund. I bet they will come back with more excuses covering their sitter on this review. Very hard to communicate. STAY AWAY FROM THESE COWBOYS!

   almost 2 months ago
2. Jane T ★☆☆☆☆

   I wasn’t going to leave this review here, but since the company hasnt been post my review on their website, it’s clear they’re trying to cover it up. Long story short, we hired a house sitter from their website named Kirsten Aves because we were going overseas for a month for our wedding. Our main concern was our dogs, as one of them has severe anxiety and barks at anything. When we first met Kirsten, everything seemed fine. We explained our dog's anxiety, and she assured us she understood and could handle it. However, on the very first night under her care, one of our dogs ate all of the fish food and ended up throwing up. That was our first red flag. Later, we checked our security cameras and saw that she had left the dogs roaming freely in the living room at night, despite our instructions. Five days before we were due to return, she messaged us saying she had received a letter from Auckland Council regarding the dogs barking. We asked if she had been leaving them outside on the deck for long periods, and she claimed she had only done so that day because she was studying with headphones on. However, a council officer visited our property after a neighbor complained about the dogs barking nonstop. When we reviewed our security footage, we saw that she had been regularly leaving them outside on the deck for over eight hours at a time. This was despite our clear instructions to leave them inside in their crates when she wasn’t home, both for their safety and to prevent any potential theft. When we confronted her, she said she had been home studying—but the footage showed otherwise. At this point, we asked our mum to pick up the dogs and told Kirsten to leave our property because we were extremely disappointed. Even though we had written clear house rules for her, she failed to follow them. Her neglect has now put us in a situation where we have to explain everything to the council. We don’t believe we are overreacting—the overall vibe had been getting increasingly weird, with delayed responses and, eventually, complete message avoidance. We have no idea how this company could hire someone with such a bad attitude—someone who lied to us and neglected our dogs. On a final note, while she did leave the house tidy, there were dead flies everywhere, and she had rearranged things in our kitchen without asking for permission.

   1 year ago
3. Enzek N ★☆☆☆☆

   The onboarding process for a housesitter is VERY lenghty and is not mentioned anywhere prior on their website before you fully sign up & pay - which is unfair! We lost potential house sitting opportunity during sign up process. Also customer service representation from Lyn is very slow and I did not feel supported to proceed in time before the listing expires. I dont reccomend this site, there are far better and faster options out there.

   almost 2 years ago

1. Shane L ★★★★★

   Very professional, proactive, the site is very easy to use. Obviously, a lot of thought has gone into how customers and sitters use this site - I found it seamless to use and there were a lot of responses which was excellent. We were rescued us from a tight spot when we only had a couple of weeks to find someone. Our experience has been excellent. The references and Police checks ensured we felt safe in our decision-making. Also, the way a price is negotiated - takes all the hassle out for everyone. Well done.

   almost 3 years ago
2. Anne Murphy ★★★★★

   Thanks to Michael and Ann we had the best holiday in a long time......no house or pet worries. They looked after our house but more importantly, our precious 20mth old French Bulldog - Burt - so that we could just relax while we were away. They were awesome to Burt, made sure he was safe and sent regular photo updates of his exploits - so much so, he hardly recognised us when we came home!! Thanks guys.....we'll keep in touch

   almost 3 years ago
3. Sandy Geyer ★★★★★

   The House Sitting Company were very helpful in assisting us to find the right house sitter for our animals and property. From our experience we would recommend them to other clients!

   almost 3 years ago

1. Bruno Marques ★★★★★

   The housesitting company was a very positive experience. We had a great sitter who took care of our fur baby and of our house. It was a smooth and hassle-free process. I highly recommend it.

   almost 3 years ago
2. Camila Fracaro ★☆☆☆☆

   Very poor communications from the company. Poor website functionality when compared to other (cheaper?) pet/house-sitting services available in New Zealand. You have to pay for a year's subscription to discover this, don't make my mistake. use another service. Update: The poor communication was related to the company deleting our house sit applications without telling us, we realized it when the houses were not listed in the previous applications page in multiple occasions - first I thought it was a glitch as their website is not really good and re-applied it, but it happened another 3-4 times. The procedure we breached - and NEVER got any comms from them for correction/warning - was to add our phones in the application and we did it after Lyn asked us to contact the home owner when they confirmed us on the only time we house sit for them, so we were leaving there to be easier for owner/house sitter. After questions about the applications being dropped, they ended our subscription, again without any communication. This company doesn't value their house sitters! We've been house sitting with kiwihousesitters.co.nz for the past 7 months non-stops + other 4 house sits before and never had a problem there like this + their website functionality (filters, messages, etc.) are much better!

   almost 3 years ago

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