I decided to try this service so my dogs did not have the stress of going to a kennel and could be looked after in their own home and I have to admit I was very nervous and left specific instructions. A house sitter was booked from 19/12/15 till 30/1/16. Unfortunately by the 5/1/16 he had cancelled due to a family illness which couldn't be helped and it is understandable that he would want to be there to support his brother. It did end up leaving us overseas needing to find someone to mind our 3 dogs for the remainder of our vacation. This aside however, he was left with specific instructions that our dogs were not to be left outside when he went out because they bark. On Christmas day, he left them outside and some of the neighbours from the back street were wandering around our home looking for the source of barking dogs who had apparently been barking most of the day. They threatened to call the rangers. Fortunately, the neighbour across the road from us spoke to them and then contacted us to inform us of the situation. We had to phone and talk to the sitter from the USA. He was also asked not to let the dogs off lead at the park and I found out that he was doing this too.
One of the dogs urinated in the bedroom (looks like 3 times) and it doesn't look like he made much attempt to clean up the mess as there are yellow stains up the curtain and on the new carpet. I did speak to him about this and he admitted it was one of the dogs who was spending time in the bedroom with him. Dogs were supposed to sleep in the laundry. Seems like he totally ignored any of our specific instructions. The only other things we asked were to collect the mail and water a couple of pot plants. It seems the mail was left in the box for a while as some of it was saturated by the reticulation. Overall not impressed and would be very hesitant using this service again. I think I will go back to using a kennel and relying on neighbours to keep an eye on the house.