Overall, various changes meant as upgrades help create the impression that hosts can order up sitters as they please, moving away from a sense of exchange and partnership.
To me, the sitter experience is worsening, making it less and less worth doing volunteer sitting via THS.
Example of how newly released day/time seems a THS solution that solves a non-existent problem, indeed may sometimes cause harm.
Listing shows arrival time of 6-6:30am and departure time of 9:30-11pm. Perhaps this reflects real view of Pet Parent. More likely Pet Parent does not understand feature. Either way, existence of this feature may result in this Pet Parent receiving no applications. Who the heck would agree to such nonsense expectations?
THS, please let Pet Parents and Housesitters be grown-up adults and discuss such matters in a video call.
I just saw one with a departure time of 3-5am. Maybe they meant pm or maybe they actually expect the sitter to leave at 3am. There should really be a limit on the options so HOs can’t put ridiculous times.
I’m actually now trying to understand why this was implemented, and on what planet is it the least bit helpful! Seems to be just causing more of a problem than a solution, to what! Something that wasn’t a problem to begin with 
I think in the past, sitters have talked about issues with arrival and departure times but nothing worth taking this action for. Just crazy. We have talked about many things that actually DO need attention and nothing has been done about it 
@GotYourBack I earlier added a similar example in this post, as have others. However, have you ever seen TrustedHousesitters backtrack on anything they’ve implemented? I haven’t.
There’s an overwhelming dislike of this change in this post and yet I doubt anything will change, at least not for the better. Scrapping this, and the calendar, should be top of their to-do list for Monday morning.
@Snowbird It certainly doesn’t make for “clear expectations” or a “seamless experience” that our booking fees are to be used for!
I’ve mentioned this and many other unwelcome changes in my recent survey. I wonder what is the point of these surveys?
As a HO I always list a sit to start the day before we leave, as most often than not we have early morning flights. The end date is always the day after we arrive home as we have 12 cats, and wouldn’t want a sitter to leave early if we were only going to arrive home late.
This can all be explained in a video chat, but I think it makes things a lot easier this way, particularly having them arrive the day before, as you will have plenty of time to explain anything and for them to get to know your pets with you around, albeit briefly.
In all my time of being a member (2017) there has never been for me an unclear arrival or departure time. This was always discussed and agreed in advance.
I recently saw a sit that I liked. Sent a message asking if the arrival time was negtionable ….. it wasn’t . Arrival was between 8-9am. Not good for me, hotels in the area very expensive, add to that travel costs ….. not worth it in my mind for a week or less. I am now thinking, any sit that states an arrival/departure time, may have to be avoided.
My alternative is to stick with Arrival and departure times that are to be confirmed later. This effectively decreases the number of sits I could consider.
I can’t help wonder if this arrival/departure expectation will result in fewer applications… (just thinking out loud. )
It has put me off some applications. I really don’t want to start an application assuming the arrival or departure times are wrong, so I just don’t apply.
@Newpetlover, @fyfie - we agree with this perspective. For both arrival/departure times and pet exercise “sit essentials”. It would be tragically ironic for the THS member community if a new (unrequested?!) feature implemented by THS resulted in fewer applications. Perhaps THS team may enhance the features to be value-add.
Exactly this! I am effectively only applying to sits with arrival times TBC
Yup, that’s why I decided in December to quit THS — the more undesirable, thoughtless changes THS makes, the more they give hosts the sense that they can “order up” sitters as they please, without consideration about what sitters would get out of the exchange.
Ultimately, the knock-on effects make for a worse and worse sitter experience and more effort to find reasonable sits. That’s not good for business, but THS decision-makers, product people and such don’t seem to use their own product or have much clue about what makes for good exchanges.
I saw the writing on the wall and stopped applying for THS sits a couple of months ago. Now, I’m just waiting to do my last booked THS sit, because hosts depend on our commitments as sitters.
Bigger picture, the more sitters hold back on applications (or quit), the greater the detriment to hosts.
How does this help with clarity when as soon as the sit is confirmed the listed arrival/departure times are gone?
It’s incredible the amount of unreasonable times listed.
I thought at least half an hour slot was required but I just saw this:
29 – 31 May 26
Arrival: 4–4:30 PM
Departure: 10 PM
Besides, the dog cannot be left alone.
I actually start to feel like applying to some of these unrealistic ones just to say “what are you thinking?” Maybe when I’ve got nothing to do and am feeling particularly snarky I will 
Snark or not to snark.
The thing is, you don’t get to dictate when they’re available even when you’re paying professional sitters. Like I don’t just tell the folks who sit my dog for a lot of money when they’ll start and stop – I have to check what works for them.
And today, I got a request for a repeat sit. The hosts, who’ve not renewed with THS, again offered me round trip airfare and this time offered money as well to sit their cats.
They have a large, upscale home in San Francisco, near loads of amenities, with a regular cleaner and gardener. But I’m not available and, even during previous times when I was, we always discussed arrival and departure times to mutually suit us. No micromanaging prompting needed by THS.
For us (and with various other hosts I’ll repeat sit for), we met via THS, but we’re now better off without paying THS any membership fees or booking fees and dealing with its crummy user experiences and iffy tech.
I agree with many others here- the arrival departure times are a turn off. Better to leave it open. If I see times I don’t like e.g very early arrival or late departure I’m inclined to scroll on unless the sit looks otherwise perfect for us. E.g our current sit in Aus- perfect dates, location etc so we applied and as with all other sits negotiated timings that worked for us all. They were completed different to what they’d written on the listing. Some hosts, though, will lose out if they don’t put a wide time window- indicating Flexibility- as sitters may not bother to question further.
The new ‘time pets can be left alone’ category is also a turn off. If I see 2 hours only I scroll on. Especially irritating if HO says they don’t leave pets ‘for more than a few hours’ (which could suggest 3/4) Then states 2 hours max. We wrote to one sit recently, that was a good fit, to enquire if the 2 hour limit was really that as it is pretty restrictive. She has 2 dogs and one is anxious but they have each other for company. She said the anxious one hates being alone after dark but if they’ve had a good walk they could be left longer during the day. So this indicates there is flexibility- not shown when writing 2 hours! Again hosts will miss out when busy sitters don’t inquire further.
And the 3rd ‘improvement’ I dislike is the walking time. 2 hours a day is a turn off for many sitters. I won’t even apply if I see that. A walk of 30-60 mins a day is more than enough for most dogs- as 1 long/2 short walks a day. We are house and Pet sitters not professional paid dog walkers. I’m convinced many of these more entitled HOs expect more dog walking from their unpaid sitters than they would do themselves!
The worst combo I saw the other day was 2 hours a day walking plus only leaving them at home them for 2 hours max- for 6 whole weeks!!! What are they thinking?!!!
Before these three unhelpful ‘improvements’ we all managed to successfully negotiate arrival/departure times, walking times & leaving alone times between us. Many of the finer details are flexible and can be negotiated once contact is made. THS is micromanaging and as a result both sitters and hosts will miss out.
I am looking forward to a follow-up on this haha!
