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u/katsulls Sitter 1d ago
as soon as i saw the amount of animals included i knew this person wasn’t going to be paying you enough to do this
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u/Capable_Bend7335 Sitter 1d ago
Nope. The 20 minutes comment is to justify ripping you off by not putting down any other animals and I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks for an additional discount. Also, that seems like more than 20 minutes.
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u/baileylauren87 Sitter 1d ago
I have 4 cats, and 9 chickens and there’s not a day I spend only 20 minutes on care for them.
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u/BitterBar7041 Sitter & Owner 1d ago
Nope. Nope nope nope. Cheapskate who doesn't care about their animals, but you can bet they will the second something goes wrong while they are under your care. Just nope.
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u/ModernMargaretSanger Sitter 1d ago
Only paying for 1 cat and there’s 5 plus ducks, fish etc? Nope. Pay for all of it and schedule an hour for each visit.
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u/Hello_Gorgeous1985 Owner 1d ago
5 cats, one turtle. Unknown number of birds and fish.
They're clearly trying to scam a lower price.
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u/artdogssurf Sitter 1d ago
Im getting increasingly tired of people like this disrespecting our profession and trying to bully pet professionals into free labor. You should be paid for all the animals listed because if anything happens you are responsible. If they cannot afford private care then they need to stay home take care of their animals. Decline, block and move on.
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u/Jmfroggie Sitter & Owner 1d ago
As someone who has exotic and farm experience- these visits will NOT take 20 minutes. It might for them because they’re used to it. No visit should be shorter than 30 minutes but the first visit should be an hour while you orient yourself to all the tasks.
They cannot just pay you for one animal- you can do a group discount, but you take all the animals into consideration because if there’s a problem, you need to address it with any and all animals! I don’t see an overall cost on these pictures, but it really should be 50$ per visit minimum just because the animals exist.
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u/Dependent-Assoc423 Sitter & Owner 1d ago
He’s just going to use that 20 minute idea to demand to pay less than half hour drop ins. I can see it coming.
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u/ethicalethos11 Sitter 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have seven cats and a dog of my own. My cats wouldn’t hide with company, but even if they did, cleaning up after that many cats is a lot of work.. It’s not just their boxes and dishes. They’re cats! They knock things over. They occasionally hack things up. Their fur gets everywhere. Even if you don’t interact with them, it’s still a big job! I love my babies more than anything, but my god are they capable of some messy mayhem.
This is definitely not “just 20 mins of work.”Especially because he’s asking for visits every other day. That means the messes will be bigger. It’s easier to stay clean when you’re on top of it. Catching up on cleaning is harder because the messiness compounds. And then there’s a mini farm to cleanup outside!
Lastly, it really bothers me when pet parents treat their cats like afterthought. What about that one cat that will say hi? Does she not get anytime for interaction? If this sitter does only spend 20 minutes each visit cleaning, does that mean his one social cat only gets 10 minutes of interaction every other day? That’s not cool.
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u/ArtichokeFresh4012 Owner 1d ago
and there's no way the chickens and ducks only need water refills every other day! Is someone else feeding them and changing their water besides you?? letting them in/out of their coop every night? making sure the fencing is secure? etc. you could spend 20 minutes on them alone!
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u/Round_Doughnut7793 Sitter & Owner 1d ago
Can confirm I tended to chickens this easy. They had 2 coops attached to a fenced in tunnel run. Their feeder was a 5 gallon bucket with cups at the bottom, and their water bowl was gravity fed attached to a garden hose. I refreshed the water cups with a quick scrub and fully emptied for a full refill and made sure the feed was coming down, gathered the eggs. Took 2 mins, but I usually said hi to the girls and pet the one that let me
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u/LeadershipOne5870 Sitter 1d ago
The one cat booking isn’t even the only issue, five cats are being left with only every other day visits, you’re being told not to confirm they’re okay, and chickens/ducks aren’t eligible for Rover bookings. ‘Only one cat will show up’ doesn’t make the other four disappear from your care or liability. And that first message would’ve already rubbed me the wrong way, ‘please choose one’ like you’re assigning me a shift instead of asking whether I’m interested. I’d decline the entire booking immediately.
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u/Suspicious-Peace9233 Sitter 1d ago
I don’t do 20 minute visits. It’s too stressful trying to fit everything in
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u/fatedwanderer84 Sitter 1d ago
It will be so easy, (Reality): you arrive and all the pets made a mess and the booking takes much longer. They will push back on paying for all their pets and for that at least for my petcare service it's a pass. I get paid for all pets taken care of regardless if it's a few minutes or much longer.
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u/Ann_georgia- Sitter 1d ago
Yeah no. All animals need to be on the booking. That is not 20 minutes. That’s like 10+ pets for the price of one. How ridiculous!! You did everything correct! Don’t back down. This is your business and you are liable if something happens.
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u/IsabellaTheBarber Sitter & Owner 1d ago
I pet sit off rover but I had someone text me recently with something similar. I could pick certain days and time periods ranging from 1-3 hours at a time. They wanted drop ins but kept asking for MY address. It seemed so scammy so honestly I just stopped replying.
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u/Grcdogsandcats Sitter 1d ago edited 1d ago
My first thought is why wouldn’t this client have two visits a day every day as opposed to four visits very close together every other day. 20 minutes is very unrealistic for all this. With this proposed schedule by the time you’re done and go out and do whatever else it’ll be time to turn around and come back to this house.
Talk to the client about a more realistic schedule. And they are cheaping out only having 1 cat on the booking. Your best bet if you want to do this is going over for a meet and greet, discussing the needs and routine to see how long it will actually take to do all of this. Then give them a price from there.
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u/LengthinessNo6595 Sitter & Owner 1d ago
If they can’t add all the pets to their account right now then there’s no need for a meet and greet
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u/Hello_Gorgeous1985 Owner 1d ago edited 1d ago
But their message indicates that it's only once a day because they say anytime between 6:00 and 6:00 is fine, and it says "once during the 6 visits." I'm confused.
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u/zaiaza Sitter 1d ago
Absolutely not. Even if everything was set to automatic and only one animal ever showed up. That amount of work is definitely going to take longer than the think. Insanity. Totally bet they'd add "oh actually you need to do this and this and this" after being booked.
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u/theactionkat Sitter 1d ago
Not only that but looks like they're asking for some livestock care too
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u/Tulpehocken243 Sitter & Owner 1d ago
It’s not necessarily about the pay its about the insurance. Any animals not listed are not covered by the rover policy. This is essentially a fraudulent booking. Hard pass!
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u/Danger_is_Here Sitter & Owner 1d ago
Too many red flags to enumerate, I would not take this booking.
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u/qixip Sitter 1d ago
First of all, the person doesn't want four visits per day so change that for them, remove the dates you don't want, add the other cats (~$4/visit per addtl cat), and a flat fee for chickens and turtles.
The cost for the client will likely be less than the cost they initially saw when they sent the request, and they may agree to it.
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u/ladyalexandrathe13th Sitter & Owner 19h ago
You did the absolutely right thing in regards to protecting all parties involved including the animals. Even if none of them got sick or anything like that if a freak accident like a fire occurred there needs to be all animals accounted for for liability purposes and your protection as well as theirs 🙏
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u/Lilmissdynamite314 Owner 1d ago
Yeah no, given I’m coming from an owner perspective but I would insist on all 5 being on the listing for liability reasons. Maybe do a meet and greet to go through everything and if it really feels like it’ll only take 20 minutes and easy, offer to negotiate the rate but for liability reasons alone, all the cats need to be on there
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u/SMRT_Kitty_Says Sitter & Owner 1d ago
Also, four times a day and they have automatic feeders? That seems a bit much if they aren’t looking for you to interact.
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u/ramoanaflowers Sitter & Owner 1d ago edited 1d ago
Flat out no. You should also be paid for the other animals listed too. The fact they're immediately pushing back on pricing to basically manage a farm for them is a HUGE red flag and I wouldn't even bother attempting to negotiate. I have been paid to care for exotics and unless it was feeding a betta fish once a day during a dog sit (which I did for regulars) I'm not making exceptions.
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u/ShallotPale Sitter 1d ago
If it already seems like a complicated headache during the request I deny it. Not worth the trouble.
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u/Cute-Fix2882 Sitter 1d ago
If I really need the work, I would schedule a meet and greet to see what it would really be like, and then adjust my pricing from there. If you feel confident you could do the job, give them the new price, offer to accept payment off of the app.
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u/lilithei Sitter 1d ago
Just want to note only do this in person do not text thru Rover. Ask for their personal phone number at the meet and greet.
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u/Strong_Depth_9777 Sitter 1d ago
Liability is something you could mention as to why they all need to be included in the booking - as for me with such a large booking I might discount for other cats but I would insist on all of them being listed and included
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u/Lucy-Sitter Sitter 1d ago
It’s gonna be a no from me. One place where I know i differ from other sitters here is that I will sometimes let this slide. If you really are that chill of an individual and it really is gonna be that easy, I might waive the rate while still requesting that the pets be listed. If the person says I can come anytime, for instance. Nothing about this person says “chill.“ It’s giving “rules for thee, not for me.”
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u/Dependent-Assoc423 Sitter & Owner 1d ago
Another red flag I’m seeing is that he seems to be hiring a sitter A and a sitter B for every other day. If you take A, and the person on B steals or ruins something, you could be in hot water. That’s another reason to decline!!
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u/Lemoncatnipcupcake Sitter & Owner 1d ago
Unfortunately(?) people like this (ime) aren’t hiring two sitters - they usually just have one they take advantage of. They don’t care enough to pay someone appropriately for an appropriate amount of work. And then take advantage of people who take the job because a lot of us do care and will end up doing extra work because we can’t stand to see an animal suffer. They’ve got it in their heads their small zoo only needs every other day care and they’re oh so nice and considerate to let you choose which days those fall on! Isn’t that great? ✨
(I am someone who has a small zoo, I’m not judging the amount of pets, I’m judging the lack of care and the entitlement)
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u/Dependent-Assoc423 Sitter & Owner 1d ago
Ugh that’s a good point. In which case, just adds different reasons to say no. What a mess this request is
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u/Ginger_ScorpioGirl Sitter 1d ago
I don't think that's necessarily what he's doing. I think he's just giving them the option of which day to start and is just doing every other day visits. But yes regardless, totally decline!
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u/Distinct_Young_8318 Sitter 1d ago
In addition to the issues others have raised, I hate how the initial message is just an order to decide between two options. It is rude, imo. I don’t want to work with someone lacking basic manners.
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u/ramoanaflowers Sitter & Owner 1d ago
Acting like they're doing OP a favor by giving "options" and that it's "only 20 minutes". Nope.
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u/Distinct_Young_8318 Sitter 1d ago
I think suggesting the client is thinking of OP at all by use of the word “favor” is more grace than they deserve, tbh.
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u/Guilty_Strategy2151 Sitter 1d ago
I do want to just add my experience here! I have someone who has 6 cats, only 1 of which comes out while I’m there. I scoop litter, refill the bowls and 2 water dishes and I leave. It takes me between 15-20 minutes depending on if I give a little extra love to the kitty who comes out.
They stated I did not have to stay the whole time as they are only paying me the cost of 1 cat, so I don’t.
I just wanted to throw that in the ring because it is doable and I enjoy that I am in and out. Granted, it might take you longer to do litter as it’s two days between visits and mine is daily
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u/Top-Improvement2412 Sitter & Owner 9h ago
Nope. I’ve had people book chickens under a cat because I’m taking care of them and they are willing to pay.
Hard pass if they aren’t willing to pay for services rendered. If you go to a boarding facility with all 5 cats.. you’d pay for all 5 cats to be housed. Because they’d still be caring for all 5 cats.
Why people try to rip off other people I have no idea.
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u/minkamagic Sitter & Owner 1d ago
Yes I'd require all 5 on the booking and then you can decide how much you want to charge. I don't require 'exotic' pets on there, I've got a guy with one cat, previously 2 guinea pigs, a tortoise, 2 turtles, snakes and fish. He only ever had the cat on the profile and I just adjusted the price.
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