u/FabulousChocolate236

So usually my clients when I first accept a pet sitting they give me their Wi-Fi information and they always have water available so during the meet and greet I don't check inside the fridge to make sure there's water of course maybe I should have just asked but this is my first time having a situation like this.. I'll definitely know what to do in the future. But my client she is elderly and for whatever reason she does not want to share her Wi-Fi password with me and she does not care that there is no water here for me but she wants me here most of the day and she said she does not leave for more than an hour at a time she told me this last minute even though I told her that I will be gone for 1 to 4 hours at a time. It's frustrating because I'm using my cellular data right now and I can't really do anything for too long on my phone without things lagging and I'm not able to send photos if my cellular data completely runs out. She already paid me for these four days and I don't know what else to do... I first messaged her about it at 7:40 a.m., it is now 12:23 p.m. and her last text before the most recent one was 8:09am.

What will you do in this situation?

Pet sitter here - client withholding payment after 5 day sit, micromanaged through cameras the entire time. What would you do???

I've been pet sitting for $100 a night for a client with two HUGE dogs 100lbs each. This isn't my first time sitting for them but this trip was completely different. The dogs have zero toys, no beds in their crates, and a rule that they can only be outside for 10 minutes max with no walks. The dogs destroyed the entire couch and furniture every single time I stepped out for my other drop in visits, which the client knew about in advance since I shared my full calendar with her showing no more than four to five drop ins per day. The couch was so destroyed I couldn't even sit in the living room with them.

Throughout the sit the owner was actively watching me on cameras asking where I was in the house, why the dogs were in the living room alone, and whether I was home during the day. I had to clarify that I was eating breakfast, showering, and brushing my teeth. She even asked me what specific room I was in inside her house.

I want to be clear that I am not necessarily about the money like she said..but obviously this isn't a charity. I cleaned their home free of charge throughout the entire sit because the condition of the house was not great. I also had to deal with maggots all over their trash can when taking it to the curb. I did all of that without complaint because I genuinely care about the animals and wanted them in a better environment. The accusation that I only care about money was said to escalate the situation and it's simply not true.

Everything went downhill at the same time on the last day. The dogs destroyed more of her furniture while I was gone for about an hour. I made a 2 minute mistake of crating the dogs out of habit from previous sits, realized immediately, turned around and corrected it. And for the first time I requested immediate payment instead of waiting for her to get home, settle in, & forget to pay. All three things happened around the same time and she exploded.

She called me cursing me out saying I was trying to kill her dogs even though I had already corrected the mistake. When I requested immediate payment after 5 days of work she accused me of only asking because I was upset about the dogs destroying the furniture. I told her it doesn't matter what you think I feel like, this is a business and payment is due when services are rendered. She had plenty of time to check cameras, send me 15 different text messages going off, and call the cops back when they contacted her, but somehow couldn't send a Venmo.

She told me to get off her property and that I wasn't welcome back, even though she was the one who called me minutes earlier and told me to go back to take the dogs out of the crate. She said she would pay me when she got home this afternoon. It is now past 5pm, afternoon has passed, and she is still not home and has not paid. She won't be back until late today I guess since she won't tell me when shes going to pay me😭. That means her two large dogs with no toys, no beds, and visible bed sores on their elbows and bum from being crated on bare metal and plastic have been completely alone in that house for hours with nothing to do and nothing to lie on comfortably.

BTW these dogs are visibly underweight, one in particular has been noticeably malnourished for months with no signs of improvement despite the owner claiming she was gaining weight. I contacted both animal control and the police. The cops have the case on record but animal control in this area unfortunately does not seem to be taking it seriously and it looks like nothing will be done.

So to summarize ...she micromanaged me through cameras the entire sit, changed the rules last minute, cursed me out over a 2 minute mistake I immediately corrected, accused me of only caring about money after 5 days of free cleaning and dealing with maggots, told me to leave her property, and is now leaving two large dogs with bed sores and no enrichment alone for 8 plus hours while still on vacation. But somehow me asking for payment immediately after completing a 5 day job is the red flag.

What would you do??? For our first meet and greet a few months ago I should have turned it down t it's really hard for me to say no and turn down jobs but I felt bad for the animals since they kept going through different sitters and decided to take the job and I regret it.

I feel like she knew that I wasn't going to come back since that was my first time asking for immediate payment, and it triggered her to go off and try to control the situation. This all could have been avoided after she paid this morning when I left and cleaned her house. She did not have to go back and forth with me and curse me out. I'm so tempted to post the condition of the house and the animals but I don't think I'm going to do that out of respect I guess.