The house-sitter from hell: How a glamorous sitter with impeccable references plundered the properties she stayed in, stealing everything from precious jewellery to Jimmy Choo shoes and Le Creuset pots

When Natalie Wallis headed off on holiday last July, like thousands of other Brits, she booked a house-sitter to look after her country home and much-loved pets.

The sitter she picked, 40-year-old Ariana Rose, offered her services on a popular website catering for well-heeled holidaymakers. Not only did she come with a five-star rating, she seemed to live up to her glowing reviews.

‘When we returned home there were freshly baked cupcakes and flowers welcoming us and a card saying how much she enjoyed staying in our house and looking after our animals,’ said Mrs Wallis, who lives in a picturesque village in Warwickshire.

While all initially seemed well, in the days that followed she started to notice that certain items – a book and Tupperware items – had been moved or were missing.

But it was when checking on the whereabouts of a diamond bracelet and ring she had recently worn to a wedding that she realised something was ‘very wrong’.

‘When I picked up the bracelet box it was too light,’ she said. ‘When I opened it there was a bracelet inside. I grabbed my glasses for a closer look and it was a fake. I then opened the ring box and it too was a fake that didn’t even fit my finger.’

A chat with their postman and a check of the home’s CCTV revealed that the day before Rose had left she had received a special delivery from a jewellery shop – from where the fakes had come.

Of course, by the time Mrs Wallis called police, Rose had long gone.

But, far from going into hiding, over the next couple of months she preyed on at least four more unsuspecting homeowners in Warwickshire, Suffolk and Somerset using the same methods.

Advertising her services on the TrustedHousesitters website, the chatty and sociable freelance make-up artist convinced prospective clients she was just the sort of person to be entrusted with their most valued possessions, claiming to live in London but being a ‘country girl’ at heart.

What her victims would only later discover was that, all alone in the house, she would trawl through cupboards and drawers looking for valuables she thought the homeowners would not immediately miss.

Antique silver, vintage champagne, Jimmy Choo shoes, a Second World War medal, a Le Creuset casserole dish and Christmas decorations were among the five-figure haul of items she stole.

Often jewellery was replaced with cheap replicas, some from Claire’s Accessories, the former high street chain for girls with a pocket money budget.

Only when finally arrested did the scale of her larceny emerge.

Rose sported designer shades, jewellery, a Rolex and drove a BMW, while her flat was an Aladdin’s Cave of stolen goods.

During the search, police found photographs of her weighing piles of silver, presumably to be sold at scrap value, little of which was recovered.

But that was far from the end of the story of this house-sitter from hell. Because what we now know is that while carrying out the thefts, Rose was awaiting trial for a series of earlier frauds.

These related to properties that she had sub-let in Manchester, as well as a flat in London’s fashionable Ladbroke Grove in Notting Hill, from which she was eventually evicted owing more than £40,000 in rent.

It was a far cry from the life of luxury she depicted on Instagram: working red carpet events, downing oysters and champagne at Claridge’s and mixing with celebrities and influencers.

Despite being alerted to the flat frauds, police failed to take action, claiming it was a civil matter – prompting one of her victims to turn detective before launching a private prosecution against Rose.

Facing trial last month, at the last minute she pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud and one of perverting the course of justice. Weeks earlier Rose had also separately pleaded guilty to five counts of theft relating to her time as a house-sitter.

On Thursday she appeared at Southwark Crown Court where she was sentenced for all the offences, which involved a total sum of £67,000.

Jailing her for five years, Judge Nicholas Rimmer said she had displayed ‘callous cruelty’ to her victims, adding: ‘The impact of many of your offences has had a long lasting and invidious effect.’

The case also raised serious questions about the level of vetting that goes into house-sitters on agencies’ books – which won’t sit comfortably with anyone going on holiday this summer and planning to leave their home in the care of a stranger.

Rose’s career as a conwoman began at an early age. From the start she was motivated by a desire to live a life she otherwise could not afford.

It is understood that her real name is Sana Ali and that she was raised in Glasgow before moving to Manchester.

In 2008, aged 23, she was convicted of fraud offences after siphoning off £58,000 while working at Barclays bank. Because it was her first offence she was given a suspended sentence.

Three years later she was back in court, appearing under the name Ariana Ali.

This time she was accused of a series of property frauds – a swindle she would later repeat.

The ‘thoroughly dishonest young woman’ posed as a landlord called Sarah Adams to advertise her flat online, Manchester Crown Court was told. She staged viewings and even drew up fake contracts before demanding deposits and rental payments from prospective tenants.

But, having pocketed £4,180, she promptly disappeared and jetted off on an all-inclusive holiday to Miami, Florida.

Arrested at Gatwick on her return, she pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation and was jailed for 20 months.

Sadly, any lessons learned did not linger long: between 2016 and 2018, Rose was back to her old tricks, sub-letting a flat in Manchester that she was renting. She used fake tenancy documents and created a false email account to impersonate the actual landlord.

Rose would become aggressive and threatening when tenants requested their deposits back after moving out, telling one of them she would ‘smash her face in if she went to police’.

She pocketed £30,337 in fraudulent rent and fees – as well as receiving universal credit, a monthly wage from a local theatre and earnings from hair and make-up bookings – appointments she may, or may not, have actually carried out.

Over three years Rose paid £101,000 into three bank accounts.

Despite the women she defrauded reporting the matter to police and Action Fraud, the national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime which was recently renamed Report Fraud, no action was taken against Rose.

It meant that in September 2023, and now living in London, she was able to rent a flat through property manager Caroline Evans.

From the start there were problems and, within months, she had stopped paying rent, forcing Ms Evans to start eviction proceedings which would end up costing her £6,000.

With Action Fraud again not employing any measures, Ms Evans started digging in to Rose’s past, finding and contacting the Manchester victims.

She brought a private criminal prosecution and Rose was duly charged with a string of offences.

But while on bail she was free to target wealthy rural homeowners. Having registered on TrustedHousesitters using a number of different names, she would reply to adverts seeking a house-sitter. Homeowners, who pay a small subscription fee to the website, benefit from not having to put their pets in kennels, while the sitters, who are not paid, get to enjoy a free stay in well-appointed homes.

Between July and October last year, Rose targeted five properties. Her victims included a couple in their early 60s living in a country house near Newmarket, Suffolk.

‘I found her on TrustedHousesitters which we had used before and found to be fine,’ said Jo, a mother of two. ‘I had a video link-up with her and saw she had fantastic reviews as she house-sat for other people.

‘Her profile picture showed her sitting on a horse and turning away slightly so you could not properly see her face, which was slightly odd in hindsight.’

Her husband Charlie, a retired City worker, added: ‘While she was here, she was very clever and sent us pictures of the dogs [who were well looked after] to make out that all was well.

‘She had us completely conned. When we came home, she had left us a lovely bunch of flowers and a very nice letter saying how much she had enjoyed her stay.’

It was only when they were later contacted by Warwickshire Police, who were investigating the earlier thefts from Mrs Wallis’ house, that they realised anything was missing. The couple were sent pictures of property recovered from Rose’s home and realised it showed items belonging to them including three bottles of vintage champagne, two designer ski jackets, a Montblanc pen and several of their 31-year-old son’s wedding presents.

Charlie said: ‘She was very clever because she took the bottles from boxes which were at the bottom and left the empty boxes under full ones so we would not realise for some time that they had gone.’

Jo added: ‘I am very bitter now and I feel really stupid that I trusted her. It took me two or three months to get over it. She is a dangerous woman.’

Her husband added: ‘It raises huge questions about TrustedHousesitters and how she was allowed to be on the site. We heard that she had already been struck off earlier by the company, but she managed to get back on the website by changing her name.’

Emma Barkes, another victim from Warwickshire, was also taken in by Rose’s charm – she and her husband arrived home to a cake and frittata waiting for them.

Soon after, Mrs Barkes noticed that a Le Creuset pan was missing but it was only when contacted by police that she discovered the extent of the thefts.

‘Anything that was silver and gold was gone. I think she must have sold them for scrap and they were melted down,’ she said. ‘I lost my great-grandmother’s 1930s diamond cocktail watch that she had given to my grandmother for her 21st birthday.

‘It was engraved on the back ‘With love from Mum’ – I’d only ever worn that once.’

Meanwhile, in Somerset, David and Paula Lusk, long-time users of the website, invited ‘Anna Noble’ to look after their two dogs and home in Wiveliscombe last October, having first had a video chat with her.

Mrs Lusk, 57, a former HR manager, said: ‘Anna’ seemed to be talking to us in front of double windows in what she said was a smart property in Notting Hill.

‘She said she had also lived in Chelsea previously and was a member of Soho House but she didn’t like it because it was for people with money and not necessarily with class.’

Arriving in a BMW coupe, she was expensively dressed and ‘smiley and polite’. The couple returned home to flowers, a thank you card and three meringues covered in exotic fruit on a cake stand in the kitchen.

Again, they only realised that property was missing when police sent them photos that included a CBE awarded to Mr Lusk’s relative and some rare coins.

While the medal and some of the items were retrieved, they have struggled to come to terms with the theft.

‘We always liked to believe in the best in people,’ said Mrs Lusk. ‘So this has shaken our faith in humanity. You feel violated.’

She too has questioned how well sitters were vetted by TrustedHousesitters, criticism echoed by first victim Mrs Wallis.

‘We were able to give the police Ariana’s location because TrustedHousesitters kept her on their site supplying her to other households for about five more sits and two months,’ said Mrs Wallis.

‘In spite of numerous calls and messages from us and contact from the police she was kept on the site. We had given them the case number and a police contact but they just said that they couldn’t do anything.’

Asked about these claims, a spokesperson for the company told the Daily Mail: ‘This person has a long history of fraud across multiple sectors and used fraudulent identities to circumvent our verification checks. Her activity was spotted on several occasions and she was removed from the platform before she, unfortunately, found a way through.

‘The overwhelming majority of sits occur without issue and examples of this nature are extremely rare but, when they happen, we act swiftly to remove individuals from the platform and, where necessary, work with the police.’

At Southwark Crown Court, property agent Ms Evans said: ‘This was all a game to Ariana. Someone had to stop her. I feel resentful and disillusioned that this case had to be privately prosecuted despite repeated efforts to get Action Fraud, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to do something about it.’

The judge approved an application for the costs of Ms Evans’ private prosecution to be paid from central funds.

In mitigation, it was said that Rose had had an unhappy childhood and ‘spiralled into fraud’ as her father died from lung disease in 2023.

The reality is that her crooked ways started well before that.

And there may be more victims yet to come forward.

Rose has also been accused of ripping off brides-to-be by taking money for hair and make-up, then pulling out at the last minute. It suggests there is no limit to how low this shameless conwoman might stoop.

But the other terrifying question is: how many more like her are out there, potentially heading to your home this summer?