Chalk it up to experience. I would ask them how the damage on the deck happened. Just be glad your pet/s are alright.

Agreed. You got what you paid for. Next time hire a professional.

I pay $50 a day to board our dog when we travel. I understand not everyone can afford to do that. Our house stays empty and that's never a problem.

You seem to prefer taking a less expensive approach, which is fine, but I don't think you should expect it to be completely without cost. Would your house have been in better shape when you returned to it if you'd similarly left it empty?

The house sitters took some liberties, agreed. If you want to maintain the relationship you have with them, and would consider using them again and in doing so would communicate more specific expectations in advance, say nothing. If you don't care and the situation bothers you, ask for reimbursement for the phone bill.

Yes, you should just ignore all of that, and next time you have house/pet sitting in make sure you define whatever rules and responsibilities you expect. 80 bucks is still a good deal, even if it should have been 'gratis'. I hope the pet is okay! I find it comical that you put house before pet in your trouble.

Forget about the shower head and salad spinner. That's peanuts.

Chalk the phone bill up to them not realizing the cost and just pay it. If you have them house sit again in the future, explicitly let them know that they can't use your phone for long distance (or just let them, since 80 bucks isn't really that much money).

All of those things are just small things that don't matter.

The deck has me curious. What caused the scratches? Does it look like they were dragging furniture around? Are they scratches from dog claws (ie. were they playing 'catch' with your dog and his skidding on the deck scratched it?)

Did it obviously need repaired or are you just picky?

The answers to the cause and extent of actual damage to the deck would dictate how I'd handle it.

Are you saying you paid nothing for people to pet- and house-sit for you? We pay a bargain $25/day for our sitter while we are on Maui for two months.

No, the OP said, "they got to stay in our great home and see and do things on the Olympic Peninsula and the Seattle area."

I'm still wondering how the deck got so scratched that the OP had to refinish it.

But that means she still paid them nothing. I don't think the fact that your house is "great" means they shouldn't be paid. Also confused how $80 is such a hardship when you just went on a four week vacation in Europe. Next time I would just hire and pay someone.

I got the feeling it was a vacation exchange kind of thing. There are clubs that will house set for you if you go on vacation, and you do the same when they go on vacation. There are also clubs that you allow someone in your club or group from a different city/state/country to care for your property while you are on vacation (affording them a cheaper vacation.) When I lived in Dubai, we had college students living in our home here in the states (they paid rent) but over the summer we traded with them for a month. We came home and they went to Dubai.

Are your pets OK? If so, ignore it. Very small price to pay for 4 weeks of in home pet-sitting.

Wouldn't it be nice if OPs came back and responded/answered questions after people cared enough to respond to them?

S/he didn't like our replies, Suzie!

(I haven't replied, yet).

I think that some discussion is in order, when you get together with them in a routine fashion, as to what their experiences were while in the house ... to include the issues that concern you (without being heavy-duty or accusatory about it).

Maybe they'd offer to pay the phone bill: they might not have been aware of its not being covered by a plan.

ole joyful

Offering free vacation stay is very, very good savings in exchange for watching Fido and the house. Damaging property, of course, should not be permitted.

Or uncompensated, substantial phone bills.

ole joyful

$80 isn't that much compensation to worry about - house sitting can be very expensive - but I agree it was taking liberties and wrong to make international calls on someone else's phone and dollar.

I just saw this so will explain a little more. My second sentence in my OP said we were members of a travel club. We have been members for over ten years and have had very positive experiences with people who have stayed with us and with whom we have stayed. Some of them are now close friends. We have had house/pet sitters several times as this is part of the travel club (members all over the world). We also ask them for references before we say "ok". So, it is almost like friends volunteering to stay in your house while you are gone and being able to have a great vacation.

These people were from the deep south and anxious to get out of it in the summer and we had wonderful, sunny but cool weather while they were here. We are lucky we still have one of our pets as they told us that they locked him out on the deck and didn't know about it until they were in bed and heard him bouncing against the door several hours later. They laughed about it. We failed to see anything funny as I specifically warned them not to leave the cats alone on the deck as there were eagles that could snatch them up. They gave us three references and one reference didn't respond (the other two were very positive) and now I can understand why. I would never give them a good reference but don't know if I would respond with our experience if anyone asked for a reference.

My comment was that you could afford 4 weeks in Europe but not an $80 unexpected phone bill?

I love that you checked back in, but didn't answer any questions or tell us what you ended up doing.

It sounds like the pet thing is the worst offense (leaving your cats out alone when you specifically told them not to). But you didn't even mention that in your OP. Strange.

I'm still curious about the damage to the deck. Maybe you'll check back in the 6 months or so and drop some more tidbits of information.

The OP popped back in briefly to say, "They gave us three references and one reference didn't respond (the other two were very positive) and now I can understand why. I would never give them a good reference but don't know if I would respond with our experience if anyone asked for a reference."

What I'm getting out of that statement is that the OP believes that the third reference (the one that didn't respond) would have given a negative review of the house sitters; and that had they known that, they wouldn't have allowed these heathens to stay in their home. And, because they didn't have "the rest of the story" in advance, they are now going to avoid giving an honest appraisal of these people if anyone asks. They, apparently, feel that another travel club member should have to suffer because they did.

Good to know. Next time Hubs and I are in the Seattle area, we will either stay at the Grand Hyatt in Seattle or the Hyatt Regency in Bellveue.

Can't go wrong with either of those places. lindsey. I've stayed at the Fairmont in Seattle, it's also very nice. But whatever you do, don't use the phone.

While we have a house that would likely be of interest for those who like house-swapping, I simply don't want strangers in my house. Especially when I'm not around, full stop. I'm happy to pay for where I stay myself when I'm travelling. Swapping may work for some (though apparently not the OP who wants a completely cost free experience on both ends) but it doesn't hold any attraction to me.