I’m quite new to THS but it strikes me there are some basics that need improvement on the listings for HO.
I always find it frustrating when HO don’t complete the amenities section and have just ‘wifi’ ticked. Why is this not compulsory for their profiles?
Standard questions that we can see instead of leaving it to the descriptions we read. Much more streamlined then let them expand in the description.
Is/are dogs reactive? Sociable?
Good on lead? Will run?
Can be left for … hours etc
Another important point is if there are people staying in the house or people with access whilst away - safeguarding issue as is the cameras for security etc. which I think is also in another thread…
Photos: We need photos of whole house, every room we will be using, not just pet photos. So often HO think it’s a pet gallery and we are only wanting to see their pets. We are staying in an unfamiliar home and as with a hotel or B&B we would see it first. It’s the whole experience, not just pet sitting. It would cost HO a lot to have a live-in sitter.
More onus on them to prove that it is a safe and comfortable environment is really important.
I agree it would be great if there was some way to make sure listings for dogs included some basic information like some of the examples you listed. Over the years my husband and I have become much more discerning about dog sits, and I appreciate when there is ample information in the listing about their routine, any special needs, behavioral issues,etc.
As for the amenities, that is a relatively new addition. If a HO created their original listing before it came out, they may not be aware of it, and any new listings will continue to just contain the more limited set of features. That is just a guess since as a sitter I don’t know how anything works in the HO’s side of the site. But making it a compulsory section to fill out could be a good idea.
And yes, the photos are really important. There have been sits where I passed on applying because they didn’t contain any photos of the home. I didn’t feel like taking the time to apply and request this info.
As a full time sitter who is really flexible with where we go and when–so lots of sits to pick from–,and likes things to go as smoothly and easily I avoid what I perceive to be extra steps the process, whether it is requesting photos, asking a HO who only wants single people to consider a couple or providing additional references beyond my verified reviews.
While it would seem obvious how important it would be to provide photos of the home in the listing, the emphasis placed on pet care might lead some to think sitters are more focused on the animal for whom they will be caring. Or maybe it is a privacy thing.
And in some cases, it may be that the house isn’t that nice, and it is deliberate, but I don’t think that is the most common reason though. I have taken a few sits without a lot of pictures of the living space because intuitively I felt really drawn to the sit and the house was always fine. There were just other elements of the listing where I got a strong sense the house was probably nice and it always was. But this is not something I do often at all.
As @KC1102 said, THS somewhat recently added the amenities section without notifying HOs (or at least, I don’t recall being notified!) Wifi was already an option before the change, which is probably why it’s the only one checked out of everything. All the new options are hidden under collapsible sections next to some larger yes/no questions, so it’s not immediately obvious how much there is to it. I don’t remember exactly how this section looked before, but if I hadn’t moved homes and sat down to thoroughly update everything in my listing, I’m not sure I would have noticed them either!
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I would really like to know where the pets sleep at night - I have wasted countless application time and effort only to find that the pets sleep in the bedroom/on the bed/in the bed.
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Curious about this-- in my profile I have a picture of my dog on my bed, but she does have a separate bed she can be directed to if you prefer to sleep alone. I mention this in the photo caption but if you were viewing on a laptop you wouldn’t know. Would seeing this photo be an immediate turn off for you? I have considered adding a separate photo of her in her little corner to make it more obvious but it’d be just a picture of a dog in a bed amidst the house photos.
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That would be good to mention. We don’t mind sleeping with dogs on the bed … as long as we have space for ourselves. When we sit for sigle people. They don’t necessarily have the experience of a dog and two people in a small double bed. (A dog or multiple dogS), so knowing about it in the description would be really nice for the applicants! 
Hi @adelia a photo of a dog on the bed is a complete turn off for us so we skip straight past those listings. You are better off mentioning in your listing description about the dog sleeping arrangements, not as a photo caption. That way there can be no misunderstanding.
For us it would @adelia especially if we were having to be quick to reply with the 5 app limit. Dogs on beds are a no-no for us so the photo would send that message 
@Nadia111 @Crookie @Cuttlefish Thanks for the feedback! I did add sleeping arrangements to the listing description in addition to that caption. I do wonder if the people who’d immediately reject my listing because of that photo would even want to sit for us anyway, but I don’t want to derail this thread further! Either way it’s easy enough to snap a new pic 
