Call Kurtis Investigates: Rover app customer says dogsitter neglected pup, has video proof
SACRAMENTO — When picking a house sitter to watch his labradoodle Milli for a week, Dave Harmon found someone with five-star reviews through the Rover App. The house sitter would stay at his home and watch the dog.
"The expectation was that she was working from home, so she would spend a majority of the day there," Harmon said. "That was what we had talked about when we had the meet and greet, and the expectation was that she would take Milli on at least one walk a day."
He listed on her care instructions that Milli can be left alone for 1-4 hours, but he returned after the week to find an upstairs bedroom full of Milli's poop.
"The smell was horrible. I mean, I could smell it from downstairs. It was so bad, and it was really apparent that it had been sitting there for days," Harmon said. "The poop was hardened. The pee spots were hardened. Right? Like it wasn't soft, carpet any longer. It had been there for a few days at least, and the smell was just wretched. It was really bad," Harmon said.
"What's surprising to me is I don't know how she didn't smell it."
Turning to his home security footage, Harmon discovered from the time stamps, the house-sitter left Milli alone for much longer than four hours on several of the days. One day shows her leaving the house at 3:22 p.m. and not returning until 11:55 pm. That's eight hours and 33 minutes Milli was left alone.
On another day, the house sitter is seen leaving the house at 6:30 a.m. and returning at 4:46 p.m. You could hear Milli barking on the video after being left alone for 10 hours and 16 minutes.
"I was furious, honestly," Harmon said. "Milly's a part of our family."
And those walks Milli loves so much? The video shows several very short walks, including one that was six minutes long.
Harmon now understood why Milli behaved the way she did when he got home after the week-long trip.
"You can tell just by the way that she greeted me. She was kind of a whimpering and she was actually scratching at the garage door. She's never done that. She's never scratched up the garage door like that," he said.
The video also shows the house sitter had a stranger over.
"We don't know who this person is," Harmon said. "We don't know what he was doing in our house."
When Harmon pointed out the smelly bedroom full of poop, the house-sitter replied, "I hadn't gone upstairs at all while being with her but was home all day and would leave the screen door open for her. I think there's a chance it's behavioral, sometimes when dogs miss their parents, they show it [in] ways like this."
But Harmon says the video shows what really happened.
"I have video right showing these things that happened that shouldn't have happened."
Dave spent 2-hundred dollars to get the carpet cleaned. But says the odor remained. So, he replaced it.
Rover's site promises your sitter takes care of your pets and your home. Your pets will get all the attention they need without leaving home claiming it's backed by the Rover guarantee.
But if you look further it says, "generally, damages caused by a pet owner's dog to their own property is not covered."
He says Rover initially refunded the cost of the housesitting and covered the carpet cleaning, but he wants them to cover the $1,500 to replace the carpet.
He also wants this house-sitter removed from the platform.
We contacted Rover which right away said it would pay for the carpet.
"We are deeply disappointed that Mr. Harmon had this experience on our platform. Following our investigation, we decided to remove the pet care provider from our community. We have also addressed Mr. Harmon's request for carpet replacement, in addition to the full refund we previously provided.
As pet parents ourselves, we understand how important peace of mind is when you're trusting a pet sitter to care for a beloved pet. Prior to booking any service, we recommend pet parents conduct Meet & Greets with a number of prospective sitters. We also encourage pet parents and pet sitters to have detailed conversations before any service to determine expectations for pet care as well as boundaries concerning personal spaces, such as inside a home.
We are deeply appreciative of the trust that is placed in our community, and we work every day to continue to earn that trust. As I mentioned, these types of experiences are truly rare - in the Sacramento area, over 255,000 stays have been booked on our platform by pet parents, with 98% of reviews receiving five stars.
At Rover, safety is at the heart of everything we do. To learn more about this commitment, please visit our website. We are deeply disappointed that Mr. Harmon had this experience on our platform. Following our investigation, we decided to remove the pet care provider from our community.
These types of experiences are truly rare - in the Sacramento area, over 255,000 stays have been booked on our platform by pet parents, with 98% of reviews receiving five stars."
Harmon says Milli is back to normal now, but he won't trust her with Rover again, saying the entire ordeal left him feeling guilty.
"And that's on me as the dad in the family. So yeah, I definitely feel guilty about that," he said.
