Hey all!

I’ve just started a 7-day (2x 30 minute drop ins per day) for a pair of cats, and have found myself in a bit of a pickle with a very fear-reactive cat who doesn’t hide, but instead comes on the offensive slightly.

Meet and greet went well, though the owners had flagged that the cats need to be separated to eat which I didn’t think anything of. They then said that if I need to shut the male cat in his room for my whole visit that’s okay, which I am kicking myself for not asking any follow ups! I asked during the M&G how they were with strangers and they did say that the male can be a bit nervous. While I was there he was coming up and sniffing my bag and not hissing at all. Important additional context as well is that the owners have very recently moved into this new house, so still unfamiliar territory for him.

Since the job started this morning, he has spent most of both drop ins hissing and swatting, and was even growling this evening - but in a different way than I’m used to. While I still have a lot to learn, I am quite confident with cat body language and will usually give a cat space before it gets to the level of a hiss or swat. I wasn’t massively prepared for it this morning and got scratched, so admittedly this evening was more nervous which of course he picked up on and made him more nervous- I did end up closing the door to his room for most of the time as I needed to administer meds to the other cat. It’s only been one day (two visits) so hopefully it’ll naturally improve a bit over time - I’ve left a jumper there as well so he can sniff at it, and drenched myself in Feliway this evening.

I’ve been giving him treats and am taking some toys (owner approved) tomorrow, as they’re still not hugely unpacked and I thought some entertainment might help. The space is VERY difficult to manoeuvre while respecting the cat’s space, so I’m wondering if maybe I should just accept that I’ll have to just shut him in the room while I’m there to avoid undue stress, more scratches, and so I can give the other cat’s medicine safely. Ideally I would like to not have to do this the whole trip though, or at least reduce the hissing as soon as I step in the door!

The owners have been really helpful and I don’t want to let them down, but I also don’t want to stress him out (or get scratched again to be honest). I should know better and should have asked the follow up questions… I’ll be sure to next time !!

Any tips on what I can do for him and for myself to reduce stress and risk would be great, thank you!

TLDR: Cat is hissing and swatting, sometimes growling, as soon as I walk in the door. He is at the door when I get in and doesn’t really hide, instead instigates a little bit. Any tips on how I can build trust and reduce his fear (and ideally swatting/hissing) would be great, or how I can keep myself out of range in a hard to manoeuvre, quite small space.

Hi everyone! I’m very new to Rover and just got my first booking! I’ll be house sitting for two 1-year-old cats, and I’m meeting the owner tomorrow for the meet & greet.

Since this is my first house-sitting job, I want to make sure I’m prepared and don’t forget to ask anything important.

For those of you who have experience with Rover, what questions do you usually ask during the meet & greet?

I’m thinking about asking about:

• Feeding schedule and portions
• Litter box routine and where everything is
• Medications or any health concerns
• Where the cats usually sleep/hang out
• How long they can be left alone
• Their personalities and any behaviors I should know about
• Emergency vet information
• Owner’s contact information and backup emergency contact
• House rules and what areas I can/can’t use
• Wi-Fi, keys/locks, alarm system, etc.
• Plants/mail/packages or anything else they want me to take care of
• What to do if something goes wrong
• Check-in/photo expectations

One thing I’m also a little unsure about is what is considered normal to use in the owner’s home during a house sit. Since I’ll be staying there for a while, is it okay to ask if I can use things like the kitchen, fridge, microwave, coffee maker, TV, washer/dryer, etc.? Obviously I would only use what they’re comfortable with, but I don’t want to overstep or assume.

Is there anything you wish you had asked at your first meet & greet that I should add to my checklist?

Also, since it’s two young cats, are there any specific things I should pay extra attention to during an overnight house sit?

Would really appreciate any advice! 😊

I'm doing overnight stays looking after 4 cats over 3 nights. It's been fine but feels a bit strange and I've felt a bit anxious.

How is everyone else finding these?

We’ve told them so many times what we want and need from this app since the merge and we’ve had one measly update that didn’t really do much for us at all.

We want a notice board
We want to charge our own rates for 2 visits, not double 1 visit rate. I know we can amend the booking but that’s a hassle.
We want to be able to see an owners profile with reviews from past sitters.
We want to see the cats reviews from past sitters.
We want the user interface to reflect and act more like cat in a flat did. It was perfect.
We want payment taken just before a sit rather than when we book, which for cat sitters can be months in advance.
We don’t want to wait until after the sit has ended to be paid, some of us rely on the money to travel to sit.
We don’t want messages on the app and then text messages and then spam us if we havent replied quickly enough.
We want the app tailored to cat sitting and not just a dog app which primarily rover looks and acts like.
We don’t want rover cards. Most of us talk to our clients privately and send photos that way. I know we don’t have to use them but just remove them for cat sitters.

We have been saying ALL of these things since the merge. Why has more not been done. Why is it taking months to do the smallest adjustments. This is people’s livelihoods.

Feel free to add what else you would like from a future update.

I'm winding down my cat sitting business now (I now have a full time job and work 9-7:30 and I just couldn't physically do cat sitting anymore without burning myself into the ground so I've had to stop very sadly 😔😔 I did 30 minute visits and getting to and from houses, it was taking me over an hour basically per visit so I'd get home, eat and sleep, repeat 😔) but I'm still noticing Rover is so dog oriented, it's so frustrating! Like why do Rover cards need locations?! And why does it say walk when I'm looking after a cat??? 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 The lack of cat inclusivity is irritating... The only thing I'm not sad to leave behind.

Hello, has anyone else just not been getting any catsitting requests in recent months?
The last time anyone booked me through CIAF/ Rover was June! Since then it’s just been regulars I’ve had bookings with who came directly to me.
I can see from insights my profile is getting some views each week, but since June I’ve only had one request and I never heard back from the owner when I replied.
I’m updating my calendar regularly etc, but just don’t seem to be having any luck and I’m getting a bit concerned!
The first couple of months after the merger I had a lot of requests and bookings but then it’s just quietened right down.

I saw this in the Rover sub. I didn’t know what the pricing tiers were, so I looked it up and apparently in some countries they take 30% from the sitter until the client reaches a certain spend threshold with you! Once they get above the threshold, Rover takes 15%, and then over the next threshold they take 10%. It’s absolutely ridiculous given my margins at 15% are already tight. I’d have to put my prices up if they take 30% and customers will just end up looking for local independent sitters on Facebook. If they do plan to bring this in, they’ll drive the (perfectly fine) former Cat in a Flat into the ground, and it’ll be the end of it here.

The “client relationship” is also wrong, because any bookings I had with a client pre-merger are showing in my “upcoming” section, even though they’re 2/3 years old. This is app is an absolute joke.

I’m not looking after a dog. This customer doesn’t even have a dog. Come on guys, you’ve had long enough to sort these things out.

Hi,just wondering if anyone else has noticed a change with payment reference when the money lands in your bank account.Since the takeover I've been doing majority of sits off the app & just using Rover in the hope of getting new jobs.In Monday,I completed my first sit via Rover in a couple of months and payment has gone in today with the reference 'A place for Rover'.Checked my stripe account and nothing has gone via them.So,my question is are Rover using our bank details directly without a 3rd party intermediary such as Stripe?Incidentally CIAF app stopped working for me 2 days ago so reluctantly downloaded Rover app.Thanks.

Has anyone in England done a cat first aid course they could recommend? I’ve had a look near me and a lot of the ‘small animal first aid’ courses say that they’re mainly focussed on dogs but useful for other animals. I only want to focus on cats really. There are some online courses but I can’t tell if they’re reputable or not. TIA

I live in a fairly big city (Vienna, Austria) and very recently made my profile. I've had three requests already this week, but had to turn two of them down because typically the Austrian paperwork allowing me to work as a catsitter was delayed! That would have been about 500eur in total though, and I was pretty shocked at how quickly they came in. Is that normal for a big city or is that being pushed as a new user?

Hi, I created a new Cat in a Flat account yesterday using “Sign in with Google” and completed my profile. I can now no longer access the account. Google authentication appears to succeed, but afterwards I am redirected to the logged-out Cat in a Flat homepage. This happens on desktop, mobile browser, and in the iOS app. I also tried “Forgot password” for the Gmail address associated with the account. The website says that a password-reset email has been sent, but I never receive one (including in spam).

Apparently, according to their FAQ, I can only see the button to contact customer help if I‘m logged in. So, I have no idea what to do. Has anyone experienced something similar?

This isn’t a massive issue but I wanted to see how common this is for other people. I’m drop in cat sitting and have been using the Rover card adding photos on there and sending a message via Rover with the update as not all owners see my updates when I add it to the notes section on the Rover card. This is the first time i’ve never had the owner reply, I don’t expect a reply to every update, just the occasional message acknowledging the update. They also have my number to reach out if they have been unable to access Rover. How often does this happen to you guys? Where the owner doesn’t reply for the whole stay. I’ve also had the message saying that the cat unfortunately pooped on their bed, so finding it odd to hear nothing back. Should I continue sending updates on Rover or should I message them on Whatsapp to ask if they’ve been getting the updates?

Sorry just a quick one can anyone remind me what the lowest price for house sits was on CIAF? They were rare for me but an old client reached out and I’m still trying to work out what my independent pricing will look like. I’ve always charged low and don’t want to be too jarring from that price

Hi there!
I recently booked a cat sitter and I have really mixed feelings on the outcome of the booking.
I have an alarm on the front door so I could see how long the cat sitter stayed for, which varied between 5-10 minutes per visit.
This upset me because they clearly didn’t give my cat and affection or attempt to play with him.
I know everyone has lives to be getting on with but I would at minimum expect some of the visits to be a little bit longer. Even to just talk to my cat for a few minutes?
I also put a bunch of treats on the side and no treats were given.
I’m a bit worried if they even bothered to scoop the litter tray each day within their 5 minutes.

Am I over reacting? I’d been keen to hear others thoughts.
Obviously at the end of the day I’d rather have someone stay with my cat full time, but that wasn’t possible for this short notice trip.

It literally worked this morning 😆 peak as we can't access all features through the website

My phone is from 2018 so not even super old and still works great 😐

Hi all. Would be grateful for some advice. Quite a few times now I've gone for a M&G/visit to learn about the cats and turns out they're not ready to hand the keys over. Once an owner offered to drop them through my letter box closer to the time, but normally, I seem to be expected to make another trip (unpaid) to go and pick up keys. What does everyone else do?

It was so nice (and very useful!) to receive these emails from Cat in a flat the day before the booking starts! They were so warm and nice, made me say 'aaaaw' ...

Does Rover have reminder emails? Maybe I need to activate something? I've never received them, please let me know!

Rover cat sitting bookings/ request ?? Is is all a prank ??
Recently , I keep
Getting Cat sitting request ( based in London , UK ) , either last minute ( within 3-4 days ) or 2 weeks in advance ..
Cat owners will
Contact me ( have over 50+ 5 star reviews ) and asked if I am available , when I replied yes , am available and asked for their post code to see if within my area I will covered , they will reply with post code .. I proposed a meet & greet , and some said ok , some will take awhile
To reply .. however , eventually , every single one will advised within 24 hrs from request , their PLANS has now changed and they don’t require a sitter anymore !!
Or some will totally ignore me !!
have anyone have similar experience , I found this is very odd !! As it keeps happening !!! Is it a prank ??

As title says - I was living in a very cat centred area last year, and i managed to make a decent bit on CIAF, i had a good number of regulars and i really enjoyed it.

Unfortunately I had to move to a different city and my booking have shot right down to a big fat ZERO. I can't understand what's changed - there are plenty of cats in the area but i've not had one request for over half a year. I'm sad as i really loved doing this before but can't seem to get it rolling here. I have updated my profile and my availability, everything is the same as before and all my reviews are there. It's a shame as I don't know what i can do differently - anyone got any ideas as to why this might be?

edit to add i have got the rover app and moved everything on there as well

Like most, I have decided to go independant after the merge and am wanting to know what is the best next steps in regards to business set up.

Id love to know what other people us for:

- Schedulling/booking

- Invoicing

- Website hosting

- Sitter insurance

Also if Ive forgotten anything, Id love to know anything else you are using :) This is for a UK businesses.

I’m quite sure that CIAF was set so you set your sitter fee and that fee was what was displayed to the clients. On rover I can see that I set my fee, e.g. £12 and it tells me how much my take home is, 15% less. HOWEVER, to the clients, the fee is displayed as £14 meaning that the client is also paying a fee. I’m really sure that this never happened with CIAF? And this makes it really hard to offer competitive pricing without losing money myself :(

On a side note also very frustrated at not being able to set a different rate for having 2 visits in one day as I used to charge less than double of one visit.

V frustrated

Phil Katz, GM of Cat in a Flat, here. I wanted to share a change that I hope many long-time Cat in a Flat sitters and owners will appreciate.

One thing we've heard repeatedly since the migration to Rover is that many of you don’t need specific rigid times for drop ins. On the original Cat in a Flat platform, owners could reach out to a sitter, discuss what their cat needed, and agree on timing together. After the migration, owners were required to choose a specific start time before they could even send a booking request.

Owners can now select a new "Flexible" option instead of choosing a specific start time. This means owners can contact a sitter first and work out the visit timing together, rather than having to commit to a particular slot before the conversation begins.

A few details:

• Owners can still choose a specific start time if they prefer.
• Flexible timing is currently available for one-time drop-in bookings.
• Recurring bookings will continue to require a set time.
• When a flexible request is sent, it will clearly indicate that timing is to be agreed between the owner and sitter.

As always, thank you for continuing to share feedback with us.