Hello - what amount of time should i wait for a selected sitter to confirm acceptance? I have been waiting over 10 days now and am getting really uncomfortable and would like to think about selecting another and rejecting this one. Thankyou for any advice
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10 days is too long in my opinion. If somebody is truly motivated, they’d answer the same day. If communication is slow/not good now, how will it be during the sit? My advice: move on!
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Agree with @Els. Ten days, for either home owner or sitter, seems way too long to wait to make plans. I have always accepted an invite within hours. I’d say a few days is ample opportunity for them to accept. If they haven’t by now, it would be completely understandable for you to withdraw the invite and chose someone else.
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@JudithRogers As sitters- if we receive an invite to Sit we confirm immediately. That’s assuming we’ve already asked/answered all relevant questions and are ready to commit.
You don’t mention if you’ve had a call or any other contact with this sitter? If you have, and they are just not confirming, that could indicate uncertainty and is certainly discourteous OR- if the sitter is new- they might not realise they have to hit the confirm button & think they are already confirmed!! Or many other reasons!
Either way 10 days is a long time to wait. I’d have followed up within 2 days at most, to enquire what’s going on! If you particularly liked this sitter then send a last quick note to them now and if no reply within 24 hrs then just move on.
Or just move on anyway!
As an experienced sitter (55 sits) I’ve learnt the following two phrases are very apt here- ‘First come first served’ and ‘If you snooze you lose’!!
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Hi @JudithRogers. Wow 10 days. Sorry that sounds like the sitter has moved on. I usually confirm invites the same day or certainly within 24 hours.
I’d be contacting your 2nd choice sitter TBH.
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Hi @JudithRogers - I would chase this up with the sitter. Are they new to trustedhousesitters? It could be that they do not realise that they have to confirm your acceptance to complete the process
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yes i did chase up, thanks and there was no response. So now I have deselected and hope the second choice is available.
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I have tried to chase up but I only have access to the chat function that they have not replied to either.
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Hi Judith - I have just accepted 2 sitters for June & July ‘23 and they both confirmed within a few hours which is pretty much what I would expect.
1-3 days is plenty.
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I always accept or deny within hours. Ten days is waaaay too long, I wouldn’t have waited two! Same goes for homeowners replying to applications. If I don’t hear back within a few days I now cancel my application and move on. You were very courteous waiting ten days but you need to take care of your own needs first. Good luck moving forward 
Hi Judith this is interesting as we are new to this too and we wait days for people to reply after they’ve applied… also some have even said ‘we are interested but can’t commit’?!
I appreciate most comments are positive but I am interested in how many cancellations people get because the sitter changes their mind?
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@TNadz any responsible sitter will not confirm the Sit until they are certain they can commit. Sometimes we have sent a pre-application message asking a few questions. We emphasise that we are not applying formally just yet, unless the answers to our questions match up. We have only once cancelled a Sit after confirming and that was because the host made no further contact after we confirmed- he just vanished! And this sit was in another country and would have involved a lot of costs for us. So we felt it was too risky & we cancelled, explaining why. The host was cool- did not really care either way! So glad we cancelled- his attitude did not fit the THS concept.
This is so annoying. I just declined a sit for someone who applied but never responded to both of my messages. I’ve also never had so very few apply because I’m no the beach but it’s in winter so I’m really hoping I find someone good…Good luck to you❤️
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@Freyafae999 I’m sorry to hear you had a potential sitter who applied but didn’t respond to your messages. That must be frustrating. We always keep our eyes on our notifications after applying for sits to ensure we respond promptly.
Best wishes in your search for a sitter for this winter. I hope you find the perfect person to fit your needs.
I had a sitter that didn’t reply to a message so chose someone else. They then told me that they relied on getting an email reminder about the TH inbox rather than looking on TH app. As this had failed they thought I hadn’t contacted them. Food for thought - maybe resend message?
10 days 
. As a sitter I would be a gibbering wreck. I can’t really understand how I’m nearly 60 and still get that bubbly, knotted feeling in my tummy when I’m excited 
but that’s how I feel when we apply for a sit we love. Then, I’m checking my inbox every 30 minutes looking for the HO acknowledgement. I even posted here last week because an HO hadn’t read my application after 3 days & I wondered if it was a tech issue.
If that sitter isn’t dead, in hospital or coping with family trauma then they are just plain rude 
. Choose another!
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I’ve found that very often sitters (new ones to the service especially) don’t know that they ALSO have to confirm the sit after the HO selects them. Maybe the communications they get via email are not clear enough about it.
If after inviting someone to a sit, it is still not confirmed by them after 12 hours, I send them a casual text (by this point we have exchanged numbers) asking if they knew they needed to confirm, otherwise the listing won’t close.
For me, sitters always confirm after that with no issues. If the sitter is completely uncommunicative for the rest of the day, it’s a red flag for me, and I move on to ask someone else.
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Should confirm within 24hrs, to allow for time zones. If they have gone through all the message exchanges and video chats prior, they should reply immediately.
If not, they have gone cold, awaiting feedback from one they have just seen and prefer, given up house-sitting, died. Hopefully not the last one.
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