Being treated like her unpaid skivvy! AIBU?

[tequilamockingbird123]

Apologies this is so long....Ok so quick bit of back story. I live overseas and relocated last summer. I had to live in my new home country for 6 months before I could work, and then apply for a work permit so I’m currently job hunting and doing odd dog walking / cat sitting jobs to fill my time and for a bit of pocket money.

I met a girl who lives in my street a few months back and we became friendly. I would say we have got together maybe 3/4 times over the past few months either to go for walks or have a glass of wine, but don’t chat in between meet ups. We’re friendly but I wouldn’t quite call her a friend.

Anyway. Said girl is going on holiday for 10 nights and sends me a text on the day before she leaves to ask if I can sit her dog whilst she is away. 10 days is quite a commitment as she has to be walked 4 times a day and I know she is taking advantage of the fact that I don’t work. I said I could only do it if she could cover some costs as I wouldn’t be able to commit to any other sitting jobs during that time. She already mentioned that she would be paying £30 a day if she hired a stranger but she would much rather have someone local and known to her do it and could we agree on £20 per day, so I agreed.

She told me her flight was leaving late on the Friday so I just needed to do the evening walk and then the usual 4 visits between then and her returning. Here is the start of the cheekiness....!

Firstly I then woke up on the Friday morning to a barrage of texts from her sent at 5am. Supposedly they mixed up their flights and they left at the crack of dawn that day - meaning I then had to dive out of bed to run over to take the dog out as she had been in all night without a pee etc and have an additional day of walking.

When I got to the house, I saw that there are two lots of medication set out on the side for the dog, to be administered morning and evening. This is not a major issue, but was not mentioned during any discussion on looking after the dog.

There was also no money left for me as payment. Now, I would never ask for money from a friend or a family member for helping out with something like this, but as we only know each other briefly and it was agreed that this was a paid sitting job, I was expected the payment to be left for me. No payment, no mention in any of the texts that I woke up to about when she would pay me.

I then go to feed the dog after her first walk. Huge big bag of dog food with probably 3 days worth of food in (they are away for 10 days!) Quick look around did not find any extra food so I text her to find out if there was any additional food. Got a text back 8 hours later saying “ooops I forgot to check how much was left”. I replied to say there was only a couple of days left, to which she said she would order a bag on amazon fresh. I said I’d happily buy the dog food if she sent me the cash by bank transfer - no reply.
2 days later, no dog food has turned up, the bag is now empty and she hasn’t replied to tell me what’s going on. I guess she’s assuming I’m just going to buy it - I’ve not had an income in 7 months so I’m certainly not in a position to do that (the food they have is a huge £40 bag!).

Messaged again this morning asking if they’re having a good holiday and whether she ordered food. Again, no reply however I know she has been on her phone as she has been updating photos from their holiday about an hour ago. Also I should add that with where they are in holiday, there is very little chance that she is not receiving the texts due to signal etc. She has also not once asked if the dog is ok, if everything is ok with the house etc - it’s been 4 days since they left.

So my AIBU is would if be out of order of me to message her to say I can only look after the dog until the end of the week and then she will have to hire a sitter? I’m now going to have to buy dog food as I wouldn’t dream of just leaving the dog without (I actually feel really sorry for her), but I just feel she is treating me like a bit of a mug as she thinks I have nothing better to do with my time.

Well, you've been given advice, take it or leave it. Now that the dog sitting has ended, you should send her a message about being paid, and if she ignores it, post it on her FB page.

I’ve used pet sitters a few times. Mainly for horses but dogs aswell.

I have never once paid upfront. In fact I ask each sitter how and when they like to be paid and have every single one has said not to pay until my return.

I have also run out of feed before. Completely my fault as I miss calculated. The sitter went and got the feed and I paid for the bag on return with her fee. (And a good tip for way of saying sorry she was put out) sitter said it was quite usual to grab a bag of feed for the animal and wasn’t an issue at all. Quite a few sitters have accounts with various pet shops/fed merchants for just this reason.

I honestly think you are being a bit unreasonable to move the goal posts while she is away. It must be horrific worrying about getting a new sitter arranged while being miles away (or another country) not knowing if the new sitter will turn up/can be trusted/knows where to go etc.

I understand you feel used but you haven’t crowned yourself in glory tbh and basically all because she messed up a bag of dog food.

But Foxy, OP isn't a professional pet sitter. She's doing a favour. She didn't have the money to pay for the food. The 'friend' took days to reply to the OP, leaving her not knowing whether she'd be able to buy food for the dog. The friend is massively taking the piss.

Op said she was doing dog/cat sitting for money while waiting for her work permit. She turned down other work to do this job, so is kind of running it as a little business at the moment, and getting paid £20 per day, so not really a favour.

Maybe her neighbour also thought she was doing op a favour - throwing some business her way in lieu of her usual pet sitter.

I still just really think it's a misunderstanding. Op is annoyed she didn't receive payment up front, and that there wasn't enough food. Her customer thought she'd pay on return and that it wouldn't be a big deal to pick up food (maybe how usual sitter works).

But op has certainly escalated things and lost any moral high ground by quitting halfway through imo, leaving her customer to make alternative arrangements from her holiday.

When we send our dog to kennels we pay upfront, but our dog walker invoices us at the end of the month, after she's walked the dog. We've also used a home boarder before, where the dog went to the ladies house for a weekend, she invoiced us afterwards. It's fairly normal business practice to pay afterwards, and yes op, I get that you're not a business BUT you have been pet sitting/walking for cash, so you should have managed the expectations of when you required payment from the offset. The dog owner may/may not be a cf, but you've been pretty wishy washy about your expectations, so need to accept at least some of the responsibility for the situation.

I’v never paid my cat sitter up front, she always leaves an invoice and we pay as soon as we’re home. I do leave enough food and treats and would always mention meds up front so definitely a CF on that front. Can you leave her an invoice for your time as agreed plus an additional cost for going to Costco, chasing up etc.

Maybe her neighbour also thought she was doing op a favour - throwing some business her way in lieu of her usual pet sitter.

I doubt it. OP said the woman's usual sitter charges 30 a day, so she was saving 100 over the 10 days. That's a nice extra chuck to spend on holiday.

She's on a luxury Caribbean-style holiday I doubt £100 represents a significant sum to her.

Rainy
You’d be surprised. My landlord fumed about how he’d lost £400 on something. He owned the house we were renting outright and it was huge (we were expats) plus a functioning farm with houses on it for labourers etc. It was several years ago. But even so.

Maybe. It just seems unlikely to me that this woman's overriding motivation was saving £100, particularly given the fact that she would've received a better service from her usual sitter.

In many ways it doesn't matter what her motivation was does it. Bet she regrets it now.

Well I hope she regrets asking me, because I certainly regret agreeing to look after her dog. I was doing her a massive favour and she knows it. In response to why would she thank me - I drove for 30 minutes each way to Costco to buy dog food which she forgot to buy (supposedly) after waiting 2 days for the money. I also picked up more treats which she hadn’t left enough of. This wasn’t asked of me before she went away. I think that warrants a thank you tbh, but everyone has different opinions on manners.

In regards to her being stressed about finding someone else to dog sit. I don’t think so. We have apps here where you have 100s of people registered in your area and you just select one. As of yesterday afternoon, she hasn’t even started looking. Really stressed.

Thanks for the comments guys but the thread is now 4 days old. No need to keep commenting. Opinion will be divided on this and there’s are always people (well in MN world anyway) that champion the CF and vilify the person helping them out.

Enjoy your weekends 😊

No one is vilifying you, we are, I think anyway, telling you that you may have got the wrong end of the stick and she is expecting to pay you on return. If you now say you haven’t even asked her for payment how are you expecting her to know that this is why you are asking her to get a new sitter and are annoyed at her, is she psychic?
BUT I do agree she should definitely have thanked you for getting more food and apologised for you having to do so and go so far out of your way.

You have a key so leave an invoice for the days you have done in a very prominent place.

I’m not vilifying you at all.

I’m trying to suggest that maybe the ‘cf’ has a point aswell.

You may feel hard done by but you did agree the terms beforehand the only thing that seems to be different to what you agreed to was the fact she ran out of dog food. I understand this is annoying and obviously if you couldn’t afford it (or a smaller bag of the same feed) then she needed to get the money over to you pronto but from the sounds of it you didn’t actually tell her you couldn’t afford it until you were at least 3 texts in and having a paddy.

If you don’t want to act as a business then don’t set yourself up as one (it doesn’t matter if you are a small neighbourhood mates rates business, you are still setting yourself up as a business)

You are saying the CF could pick anyone from an app but how on earth does that make it any less worrying for her that she doesn’t know them or know if they are trustworthy etc.

Op, I certainly never post in support of a cf but you can surely see how a misunderstanding might have arisen?

She is on holiday, irritated that she's being bombarded by texts from the pet sitter berating her for forgetting to leave enough food, and is wondering why said pet sitter doesn't just pick up a bag, like her usual sitter does. Eventually she downloads the app, transfers the money and thinks it's all over but no, pet sitter has now resigned mid-way through the job.

Meanwhile, you're annoyed about the food (fair enough) and lack of payment (which you never asked for, which she was probably just going to give you on her return).

It's a good job you've got another job because you won't be getting any local recommendations from her!

And I wouldn't be giving some random from an app the keys to my house while I was on holiday.

@OP I wondered halfway through this if maybe she was American - I am, and we generally do payment at the end of pet sitting. I’ve never prepaid it. Is this maybe a cultural difference? Regardless it was shit she didn’t leave food and has been so passive aggressive with this whole thing.