In this past Friday's post, I made mention of the contract issues we were having with our prospective housesit in New Mexico. After going over the contract with a fine tooth comb, only to confirm that I had, indeed, incorporated all of the Homeowner's changes into the agreement, I sent an email asking for clarification on what they thought had been omitted. I began to smell a rodent when 24 hours went by with no response. Hmmmm...could this be the same people who usually responded in under an hour?
Sure enough, a short while later, Jeremy and I received a notably unapologetic email saying that a "family financial problem" was causing them to cancel their trip. That would be the trip that necessitated them having us as housesitters.So, that's the end of that. Methinks they were stalling for time under the guise of debating the contract verbiage when in reality there was some doubt that the trip was to even take place.
So, to mix my metaphors--nothing is etched in stone until the fat lady sings.
We are surprisingly unconcerned about this chain of events, at least as far as our plans go. However, the amount of time we spent dinking around with irrelevant, immaterial contractual minutia, only to have things go nowhere, was disheartening. It's one thing to cater to the whims of others and get something from it; quite different to kowtow and then get unceremoniously dumped without so much as a thank-you-for-your-time.
I'm starting to see the parallels between this and online dating!
Maureen Thomson and Jeremy Myers are a husband and wife team offering professional housesitting services worldwide. Visit our HouseSitting Couple website for more information.
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