Extrem unprofessionelle, unreife und fahrlässige Erfahrung. Wir haben gezielt nach einem professionellen Dienst gesucht, da wir keine Familie oder Freunde im Raum Korntal-Münchingen haben. Wir blieben während des gesamten Zeitraums nur deshalb freundlich und höflich, weil wir Tausende von Kilometern entfernt in Ägypten waren. Wir fühlten uns durch die Abhängigkeit von ihr wie Geiseln ausgeliefert und hatten Angst, wie sie reagieren würde, wenn wir ihre Fehler ansprechen, solange sie Zugang zu unseren Katzen hat.

Ich habe mir die riesige Mühe gemacht, alle Pflegedokumente und Fütterungspläne ins Deutsche zu übersetzen. Alle Futterpackungen standen akkurat nach Datum sortiert auf der Arbeitsplatte bereit, damit sie keine Schränke öffnen muss. Trotzdem bestätigten unsere Kameras in der Wohnung, dass sie das datierte System völlig ignorierte und die Packungen rein zufällig herausgriff. Auch die Trockenfutterboxen verschloss sie nie richtig – sie legte den Deckel nur lose obenauf und schloss eine einzige kleine Seite. Am ersten bezahlten Kennenlerntag stellte sie sich sichtlich ungeschickt an, um ihre lackierten Fingernägel zu schonen, und rief angewidert 'Yuck' (Pfui), als etwas Futtersoße ihre Finger berührte.

Drei Tage vor unserer Rückkehr gab sie per Nachricht zu, unbefugt ihre Tochter in unsere Wohnung gebracht zu haben, um unsere private Unterkunft als praktischen Zwischenstopp für familiäre Fahrgemeinschaften beim Cat-Sitting für andere Leute zu nutzen ('Mein Sohn hat mein Auto, also haben sie und ich das Cat-Sitting zusammen gemacht...'). Wir hatten am ersten Tag ausdrücklich vereinbart, dass ihre Tochter NUR dann reindarf, wenn die Sitterin krankheitsbedingt ausfällt.

Wir kamen nach einer schlaflosen Flugnacht nach Hause und fanden einen Zustand totaler Vernachlässigung vor. Beide Katzenklos quollen über mit jeweils mehr als 6 Urinklumpen und 4 Kothaufen. Der Dreck war am Boden festgebacken und die Schaufel völlig verunreinigt – was biologisch beweist, dass sie mindestens 48 Stunden lang kein Kot gesiebt und ihre Pflichten am Samstag und Sonntag komplett geschwänzt hat. Katzenstreu lag auf dem gesamten Teppich und den Treppenkanten verstreut. Zudem hinterließ sie angetrocknete Futterreste in der Spüle, ließ unsere Essigflasche offen stehen, den Pflegehandschuh herumliegen und den Staubsauger-Akku komplett leer. Schockierenderweise warf sie auch unser Eigentum – unsere Royal-Canin-Lagerbox sowie unsere Reinigungsbürste für den Trinkbrunnen – wortlos in den Müll.

Wir mussten unseren einzigen freien Tag damit verbringen, ihren Dreck tiefenrein zu schrubben, bevor wir am Dienstagmorgen wegen eines Notfalls nach Frankreich aufbrechen mussten. Als die Plattform sie über unsere Beschwerde informierte, schickte sie eine extrem defensive WhatsApp-Nachricht, verweigerte jede Verantwortung für die Sachbeschädigung sowie die Vernachlässigung und blockierte uns sofort. Dieser Person mangelt es völlig an Reife, Empathie und Professionalität, um Tiere zu betreuen – erst recht keine hochsensiblen, menschenbezogenen Rassen wie Ragdolls. Absolut nicht zu empfehlen.

Awful awful awful!!!! Prices are ridiculous since they changed the app. Prices more than doubled!!!
Deleting the app.

I used to love Cat in a Flat, but the takeover has completely killed it. The rate for my normal cat sitter went from £12 a day to £25 a day! Luckily, I’ve found a local cat sitter outside of the system but I won’t be returning to Cat in a Flat. Such a shame as it was a great idea.

Used to be great before the takeover, used multiple times with no issues. Tried to use it now it has merged with Rover and the site is unusable. The search functionality asks for information that isn't particularly important for cat sitting such as time of day for visit. Sitters who appear to meet my criteria when I go on their profile page aren't returned in the search results for some reason.
When you do find a possible sitter you no longer receive any update emails when they respond to you.
This will definitely be my last time trying to use this site which is a shame as it used to be so good.

Jahrelang war es super, seit 2022 bis vor wenigen Tagen. Seitdem ist die Plattform einfach nur noch schrott.
Texte werden abgeschnitten, Handy verifizieren geht nicht, diese neue Plattform ist maximal unstrukturiert und unübersichtlich, alles ist weiß und ohne richtigen Kontrast, und mobiltauglich ist es auch nicht.

Wie kann man nur sein Unternehmen so gegen die Wand fahren, man frage mich, ob man es mit Inkompetenz zu tun hat. Da frage ich mich ebenfalls, warum man sowas vorher nicht testet und dann einfach uns ausrollt, weil wir sind ja eh nur ein paar Nummern unter den katzensittern. Hauptsache die bekommen ihre Kohle da in ihrem Büros. Das geht jetzt schon über eine Woche so. Es hat sich gar nichts geändert. Ich gucke mir das noch zwei Wochen an und dann nehme ich meine Kunden mit. Wenn sich nichts verbessert, dann muss ich wohl gezwungenermaßen ein gewerbeschein holen.

Not impressed since takeover - more complicated to book. They take your money well in advance , rather than just before booking. You also have to save a default payment method, that's a first - don't really like leaving my CC details in an account. Will probably delete my account once my current booking is finished. Such a shame

I have been a cat sitter on catinaflat since it launched in London in 2014 and would've previously given it a 5 star rating.

However, since the acquisition to Rover, it has gone significantly downhill. Even though I have set my cat sitter profile to charge per visit rather than per cat, the requests I have had through for 2+ cats are causing the price to double or more. This is not necessary for cats! For 2x visits a day the price would be £48 which is completely unreasonable for my clients. They're now not only taking a cut of the catsitters fee but also charging the cat owner an extra fee on top of their booking - doubling their own profits there. I have also tried to update my own cat's profiles on the system as I need to book with my own sitter and it will not allow it to save their new "profiles".

I raised both of these issues via email with the team at Rover and they completely brushed me off. Appalling customer service and such a shame they have sold their business to Rover.

They seem to have totally ruined a great service. Cat in a Flat used to be the one that worked best, it was easy to use and the sitters were all genuine cat lovers. The prices were very reasonable. I think we used to pay about £9-11 a day.
Now the website is hard to use, but most importantly, the prices have sky rocketed. Now looking at £30 a day, in some cases £45! There are surcharges for having 2 cats (never heard of this!) and 15% :O goes on a booking fee. It used to be flat a £1.50 per booking, which for us was usually about 2-5% tops.
I am hoping my regular sitter will work outside the platform as I will certainly not be using it again. Such a shame.

Welcome to the world in 2026. A community built around loving cats, caring for them, and providing a community service has been sold to the highest bidder. Not only will they now take every last pound they can bleed out of you, they've made a perfectly functioning app into a crap one for your trouble. Pay more, get less, and your cat sitter is worse off too. Quite literally everything that's wrong with the world now. Use anything else. Don't reward this evil, shameless greed.

What used to be a pleasant and simple platform is the latest victim of PE-backed enshitification.

My message archive has been deleted, messages from an upcoming sit have not been delivered and the fee system means our new corporate overlords are taking an almost 50% bite out of my earnings.

Such a shame.

It *was* a great app, perfectly tailored to finding local cat sitters and an essential part of my routine when planning to go away. However, since the app has merged with Rover, it has gone from an app perfectly tailored to cat sitting, to a dog sitting app with cat sitting shoved in like a square peg in a round hole. I have used it for one cat sitting job (and the sitter was fantastic and absolutely no reflection of her service) but between the prices being auto-charged per cat (rather than per visit), the report cards being the primary method of communication (rather than WhatsApp) and the sitting visits being timed at 30 minutes a piece I personally am moving away from the app to instead work directly with my regular sitter (who has left the app, along with many others apparently).

It's such a shame about the merge with Rover, and has not made the app better (quite the opposite in fact) in any measurable way for me as a user.

The application went from being an absolute gem to being absolutely awful after the merger. Instead of using their app, I just messaged some old cat sitters directly, who were happy to just do everything. They have lost my trust and future business… such a huge footgun from a company like this…

I loved Cat in a Flat and specifically avoided Rover because Rover’s system has always felt designed primarily for dog sitting. After the merger, all my Cat in a Flat information disappeared and was replaced with outdated details from an old abandoned Rover account, including my old address, so I had to manually re-enter everything.

The entire booking system now feels like a copy and paste of Rover’s dog focused model, and it simply does not work well for cat sitting.

1. Charging significantly more for multiple cats makes little sense compared to dogs. Checking in on two cats in the same home is not remotely comparable to handling multiple dogs.
2. Proximity matters far more for cat sitters. A sitter popping in for 20 minutes is not going to want to drive 20 minutes each way unless prices double.
3. Prices have gone up substantially while the service itself feels worse and less specialised.
4. The total cost is not shown clearly upfront, which the old site provided. I want to know the full price, including fees, before going through the booking process.

Cat in a Flat succeeded because it understood cat sitting specifically. Replacing that with a generic Rover-style system that was based on dogs completely misses what made the platform good in the first place.

If these issues are not addressed, I will stop using the site, just like I stopped using Rover, and continue booking independently with the sitters who have already looked after my cats for years. A genuinely disappointing and poorly thought-out merger.

I’ve been using Cat in a Flat for years and always had a simple, straightforward experience. Since the move to Rover, everything has become a mess. I can’t even see how much they’re going to charge until I send a request, and then I discovered they now charge per cat per visit. I have two cats and only one litter tray, and sitters usually spend about 15–20 minutes with them. It’s definitely not worth paying per cat per visit. I’ll be using another platform from now on. Bye, Rover.

I have been using CIAF to book cat sitters for almost 6 years and was extremely happy with the service. 5 stars! UNTIL Rover took over recently and it became unusable. I feel so bad for CIAF, because they've built an amazing service and community. Now with Rover, the UI is terrible and very unclear, lost my list of favorite cat sitters, there's a ton of new features that make no sense, while the useable ones have disappeared and prices have increased like crazy?? A booking that cost me €31,90 on CIAF (incl service fee) would now be €60 on Rover?! And that's not even including the new 15% service fee. I'm very very disappointed that Rover took something so amazing and absolutely ruined it overnight. This website is clearly meant for dog sitting, without even considering how cat sitting is a totally different service. I write this review with a sad heart, because I used to absolutely love CIAF. Thank goodness I still have the contact info of a some lovely sitters I previously booked through CIAF. Will book with them directly now. Looking at the other reviews, I'm not the only one (not many Dutch reviews yet, but take a look at the English reviews...). Unbelievable!

Awful after the merger with Rover, which is so obviously just set up for dog sitting not cat sitting. All my reviews have disappeared, there's no way to set up more than one visit a day, search is cluttered with irrelevant profiles, and to top it off the fees have increased!
So frustrating, but hopefully it won't be long until a new app fills the gap in the market

Absolute shambles! What used to be an easy to use app for owners and pet sitters is now completely rubbish and not fit for purpose !
My profile as a cat sitter completely disappeared then when that was finally fixed, I can’t access my availability calendar !
And who on earth looks for a cat sitter on a website called Rover ?

Since merger with Rover, it is awful.

Won't be using again, price hikes, ai rubbish, no support, don't pay on time, feel this is just a cash grab.

Avoid, avoid, avoid. The market will respond, I am sure a competitor will emerge as the experience now is truly, truly awful.

cat in a flat gehört nun rover und seit diese Umstellung läuft, geht nichts mehr. Meine Buchung war plötzlich nicht mehr beim Sitter vorhanden und meine Zahlungsmethode war weg. PayPal wird nicht mehr akzeptiert nur noch Kreditkarte. Eine Neuanfrage machte in der App aus der ursprünglichen Buchungssumme von 350 € plötzlich 1.044 €, die Servicegebühr von 4,90 € wurde plötzlich auf 49 € heraufgesetzt. Selbst durch die Preisanpassung vom Sitter wurde die Servicegebühr bei 49 € beibehalten (Preiserhöhung um ein 10faches!) Für mich somit sehr unseriös und absolut indiskutabel. Meine Kreditkarten habe ich vor diesem Hintergrund erst gar nicht preis gegeben. Selbst die Löschung des Kontos ist nicht ohne weiteres möglich, man muss erst eine Anfrage stellen und bekommt den Hinweis, dass man sich vorbehält, nicht alle Daten zu löschen und einige Daten zu behalten. Ohne Worte, ich bin fassungslos.

Please please please go back to cat in a flat. Rover is absolutely awful. AI chat bots, price hikes and no traffic to my pet sitting page meaning no bookings.
Clients not able to leave reviews, no one to talk and and I am not a dog walker!!! I never wanted to join the merge and am now looking for an alternative site to join or starting my own as it’s been nothing but problems.
Rover is purely dog oriented and is alienating the cat sitters causing a loss of business.