To ask this about housesitting etiquette

I would retract the offer and say you are no longer available tbh

Well what was the deal you stay here and have a holiday but look after our Pets? ( arranged by a mutual friend)

“Yes, happy to pay the £100 cleaning fee. Shall we subtract it from the local going rate of £x for in-house dog sitting?”

If it's a stunning home the type you'd of paid a grand a week to use pay the cleaner because if a 3rd party friend hooked this up then yes it will be really awkward for them after they tried to hook everyone up with a favour. And no it's not that you are a filthy beast but even after a hotel stay Wed expect a cleaner to remove everyone else's dirt for the next guest.

We pay £26 a day (when we have a dog - ours died in June but we will rescue another) for our dog to go in a really good kennels.

These are CFs.

Absolutely not!

Well, fuck that! You are doing them a favour, they should be paying you not the other way round.

We've paid £240 for one cat in chattery over our two week holiday.
They can pay their cleaner themselves or cancel them.

"We have looked after your home, pets and plants free of charge. We've left it clean and tidy for you."

That. Keep it brief and factual. Nothing to argue with, nothing to take poorly.

Ignore all the very long and faux-friendly replies that people are suggesting.

My 2 cats in a cattery was £185 for a weekso you are saving them a lot. People do say that rich people are tight, there you are.

Seriously, you need to back out of this arrangement pronto.

They will be trying to claim on you directly after, for some issue, real or imagined.

I have extensive experience of house sitting and entitled people like this get banned from the company if they pull stunts like this.

This is a disaster before you have even set foot near the place.

I had one gig and I could tell from stuff like this, before the owner left the country, that I was in for a rough ride. Afterwards they made all sorts of claims, even trying to get their Aga refurbished as I had abused it. I didn't even use it. They claimed I had dug holes in the garden and all sorts of weird shit. Luckily I had the backing of the parent company and they told them to piss off and black listed them. Their place was fucking haunted as well.

Your friend is being a CF!

I just got back from holiday, and my friends' daughter was my house/dogsitter while we were away. I paid her by the day AND left her money to pay the cleaner, just to make sure the place stayed nice for her.

They should be paying you for house sitting not asking you to pay the cleaners!!
How big is the house if they pay the cleaner £400 per month!
Absolute CF's
Do not pay a penny

Perfect response.

What @@ReadingSoManyThreads says is perfect.

I'd not mention it unless they bring it up again. Then I'd just reply:

"We have looked after your home, pets and plants free of charge. We've left it clean and tidy for you."

So you've not got the awkward "no we're not paying for your cleaner you cheeky fuckers", but it's reiterating that you've done them a favour, and left it at that.

We pay £30 a day for someone to stay here while we’re away - feeding our indoor cat twice a day and giving her company. It would cost me £16 a day for a cat feeding agency to come and feed her once a day and play - total visit time 30 mins.

Dear X

I hope you’re having a lovely time away. Your plants and animals are all really well. Animals X and Y are absolutely adorable and we’ve enjoyed a lot of time doing X and Y with them.

We are a little surprised that you have asked us to contribute to your cleaner’s fees. For pet sitting, whether it be house and pet, or just popping in to feed +/- walk dogs (if there are dogs) we usually charge around £16 per visit / £30 per day if required to live in (house sitting).

We haven’t discussed any payment for staying in your house and looking after your animals and plants because as you are friends of friends, we were happy to do it for nothing.

If you would prefer to formalise the arrangement, we can do that certainly.

Our bill would be X
Any cleaning fees would be your responsibility.
You owe us <loadsa money>

But we are absolutely happy to do this free of charge as explained earlier.

BW
libertybonds

Good grief, absolutely not! We have younger relatives by marriage who have house/pet sat for us and we hope they’ll do it again. They were doing us a big favour and we filled the fridge with food and left them wine and chocolates.

We don’t have a cleaner but no way would we expect them to contribute if we did.

I wouldn't pay no. My Friend stayed in a lovely large house near Dartmoor looking after one dog they paid her £500 ! For a week.

basically this. I cannot believe people are this cheeky and ungrateful

Let’s face it, the cleaner is mainly coming to clean up the pet mess. We have a lovely pet sitter but the worst bit about coming back from holiday is 7 days of cat hair everywhere!! They are cheeky fuckers!

My son used to house sit for his old boss- a gorgeous house and it was to look after the garden & animals -I used to go there and it was gorgeous.
Lovely grounds- but no way dog boss expect son to PAY! {son is very tidy}

This ⬆️