J.
Google
My review is a bit… different, but this definitely affects customers. In summary: Pete is a field of red flags, and he is willing to leave your dogs in the hands of a total stranger so he can go off and party.
I’ve sat on speaking up about this, since I live close to Pete and I don’t know what he’s capable of. I also wasn’t sure if he was still in business, but I finally saw his yard signs back up recently. He shouldn’t be allowed around women under 25, and he shouldn’t be responsible for animals.
On Halloween of 2024, my roommate and I were on an early evening walk. We stopped in front of Pete’s home and business, because I saw his signage with contact info. I have loved being a dog walker and sitter for years as my second job, and I was looking for work.
He heard us talking on the sidewalk in front of his house, and came out to see what was going on while he was on a phone call. I told him I’m a dog walker and sitter, etc.
He initially seemed like just a very animated and friendly man. He quickly lit up, and asked me if I wanted to get paid very good money to stay in his house and watch all of his clients’ dogs for the night, because he wanted to go to this Halloween party and stay out until 2 AM. I was desperate for extra income and job leads, rent was due, and the weirdness wasn’t really hitting me yet, so at the time, I said yes.
People, Pete was about to put your dogs in the hands of a complete stranger off the street, going off nothing but my word. Just so he could go party. I wonder what state he would have arrived home in at 2 AM…
The story continues.
He kept talking, and the more he talked, the more he went from “eccentric older guy who means well” to alarm bells and red flags flying everywhere. I’ve seen medical mania before, and he reminded me of that. I truly wonder if he was on something. At that point, I was internally panicking and figuring out how to get out of what I agreed to. I did NOT want to enter this man’s home, even with safety buddies.
He told us about his dog walkers he hires, who seem to be all teenage and college aged girls. He somehow thought my female roommate and I were around that age, and he wanted to hire us (we are 35 and 40 years old.) Pete would NOT stop yell-talking for the longest time — he kept bringing up odd stories about partying, etc… in which he constantly spoke of women in very condescending and infantilizing ways, talked about their race for no reason, etc. He told us he had a 22-year-old girlfriend “a few years ago,” and he is solidly in his 50s or 60s. He was still on the phone and nearly ignoring his friend, the whole time.
Eventually, Pete told us he’d recently tried to convince a group of former employees (college girls) to come work for him again, since he desperately needed reliable staff. (Jee, wonder why he struggles with that). He said they turned down his offer because they’d found financial success working on a certain popular adult content subscription site, and he proceeded to tell us details about the kind of adult content they produce. Wow. Why is this old man talking to very young adult girls about this stuff? And then telling us about it without our consent!
What a CREEP. Normally I would have some serious words to say to a man like that… but I would have had to deal with looking over my shoulder all the time, since he is my neighbor.
We had been trying to excuse ourselves to leave, and it took about four times (he even said he knew we were trying to go), until we practically had to force an end to the one-sided conversation and walk away. I kept telling him that I got his number from his sign, and that I’d text him about watching the dogs the second I got home.
I BOOKED it down the sidewalk to my house, and texted him from a Google voice number (would never use my real one with him) that something came up, and that I was sorry I couldn’t sit that night. I was very okay with his lack of response!
