My first bad review :(

My first bad review :(

Got my first bad review. I figured it was coming, but didn’t know it would be that bad.

I was doing drop ins for a cat once a day. Essentially the review says that I left the litter box a mess (I swept it up but couldn’t find a dust pan so I did leave it outside the box). It also said that I didn’t communicate that a fish had died. I had no idea it died and I fed it everyday! I noticed it wasn’t moving a ton on the second to last day but it was sitting at the bottom so I figured it was fine. (Also, I obviously wasn’t paid for the fish feedings, but we do what we must.)

I’ll also take ownership and say that it was a morning drop in. However I’m an hourly worker in restaurant business and so my schedule dropped in the middle of the stay which made me have to do some visits in the afternoon. However the cat never went more than 24 hours without being taken care of. They were frustrated by this, but I communicated as soon as it happened. I also couldn’t shift my $25+ hourly job for a less than $10/visit cat sitting job.

I have two cats of my own whom I adore, making me empathetic to the client, but I feel like they’re being a bit unreasonable.

Context: this person booked months out at a holiday rate. I met & greeted and confirmed. About a month later they changed their dates because they didn’t want to pay holiday rate. This made it basically a financial loss (with gas) for me but I kept the booking. I probably should have canceled when this happened.

Also context: these people left for 12 days and left their cat in the garage during a freeze. (Hence the fish dying if assumed).

What do you think? How would you respond? And is there anyway to get a review removed? Up until this I’ve been a 5🌟 sitter. Kind of a rant, kind of an ask for help. ¯_(ツ)_/¯