Categories: PETS

Phoenix couple claims pet sitter was unprofessional, left house a mess

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) — Brooke Gambino and Mohammad Kabiri are giving a Rover pet sitter a bad review after they claimed she was drunk while watching their two dogs, Bernard and Gustavo, during a 10-day trip in December.

“The dogs have been such an emotional support in these past few years that have just been rough, and they really are such a special part of our family,” said Gambino. The couple said they found the sitter through the Rover app. We’re told she had good reviews and her profile showed she had years of experience. They said a test run with the sitter in November went fine.

However, during their trip from Dec. 14 through Christmas Day, they said the sitter was sending pictures of a random dog and her messages were not making sense. That’s when Gambino and Kabiri sent a friend to check things out. “She stops by and says your dogs are alive, but your house is really messy, and she (sitter) just seems like she’s off,” said Gambino.

When the couple returned home, they were shocked. “Our house was a disaster. And we were like, things are weird,” said Gambino.

Gambino showed Arizona’s Family pictures of the dirty duvet cover, a stained wooden table, and items left behind that included a vape juice container, Airpods and random car keys. That’s when they decided to look at their security cameras. “The 17th. Everything like falls apart on the 17th,” said Gambino.

The surveillance video shows Bernard and Gustavo running loose in the neighborhood. Gambino said the sitter was making little to no effort in getting the dogs back. Another video shows the dogs barking at a neighbor with the sitter standing nearby.

Gambino also shared a video of a man, who is believed to be the sitter’s boyfriend, walking out of the house and saying, “What have you done?”

The dogs eventually found their way back home and were taken inside the house. The sitter is seen in a different video stumbling on the front steps of the house before falling down and struggling to get back up. Gambino and Kabiri believe she was drunk and say they found alcohol bottle caps in their home. “Well if you weren’t sober enough to care for our dogs, then that’s a problem,” said Gambino.

Gambino said the sitter claims to have needed to go to a hospital for a kidney infection and admitted to drinking spirits for the holidays. However, they said the sitter believes there is no problem since the dogs are OK.

Gambino and Kabiri do not plan on using the Rover app and hope the company improves its vetting process. They advise other pet owners to be extremely careful when booking a sitter.

Arizona’s Family reached out to Rover and received this statement:

Our 24/7 team is carefully reviewing all of the details of this truly unusual experience. In the meantime, we will be providing Mr. Kabiri with a full refund, and work with him on other ways we can support him and his pets.

Pending the results of our investigation, we have suspended the sitter from our platform.

As part of our booking process, we encourage pet owners to conduct a Meet & Greet with prospective sitters and carefully outline expectations for caring for their pets. All sitters on Rover must pass a background check, complete a safety quiz, and have their profile reviewed by a member of our team prior to listing their services on the platform.

Safety is at the heart of everything we do at Rover. Our 24/7 Trust and Safety team is available to assist both pet parents and pet sitters in the rare event a service doesn’t go exactly as planned, and we encourage our community to reach out to us with any questions or concerns. Every stay booked on Rover is protected by the Rover Guarantee, which provides a substantial reimbursement for eligible claims, including veterinary expenses.

We appreciate the trust pet parents in the Phoenix area have placed in our community and will work every day to keep earning that trust. In the Phoenix area, close to 400k services have been booked through our platform, with 98% of reviewed stays receiving a five-star review.

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.

Source link

Doggone Well Staff