Nightmare sitter abandoned dogs- is this typical on rover?
I have an upcoming first house sit booked on Rover. There is a flood of posts going around my area about my worst nightmare happening- a sitter who showed up for a house sitting then abandoned the pets. Wtf? People are commenting all over the post saying “this is why you can’t use rover” and I am starting to freak out. Is this typical? I hired a star sitter with over 100 reviews.
Please tell me this is a fluke. Original post below that is circulating around every Chicago FB , Nextdoor group:
...........................
Beware of booking Margaret (Maggie H.) for pet sitting.
We did a meet & greet with her in March before booking, where we went over our dogs’ schedules, feeding/medication instructions, apartment details, and informed her we had cameras inside.
She was booked for in-home sitting from 4/24–4/30. She arrived on 4/24 at 6pm with a small duffle bag, we reviewed instructions again, and left for the airport shortly after for an international trip.
After arriving in Spain, she sent one short update, but communication quickly became inconsistent. By Saturday night, we had no photos or meaningful updates, and our camera logs showed no one entering or leaving the apartment all day. One indoor camera had been turned to face a wall, and the other was unplugged.
After repeated calls/texts went unanswered, we became concerned she had abandoned our dogs. We contacted friends, family, maintenance, and Rover while trying to figure out how to access our apartment since she had our spare key.
The next morning, my sister-in-law and maintenance entered the apartment and found our dogs alone with no food, no water, and no signs anyone had been staying there. The bed was untouched, and the bag she arrived with contained no clothes only more empty duffle bags. It was clear she never intended to stay despite being booked and paid for in-home sitting.
Our dogs had been left alone for approximately 36 hours without food, water, or bathroom breaks.
While this was happening, Margaret was actively texting me false updates claiming she was with the dogs and that everything was fine. She continued lying even after we had proof she was not there.
Hours later, she returned to the apartment, gave our key back, laughed when handed her bag, and left. We immediately cancelled through Rover and received a refund but as of today, rover has failed to act or ban her account.
This was neglectful, dishonest, and incredibly dangerous. Had we not had family/friends able to step in while we were overseas, the situation could have ended much worse.