I’m not sure if it’s against the rules or not, but I know I would never apply. It’s against the spirit. I don’t want to make plans and then find out – nope – the daughter is going out that night so I have to stay home to babysit the dog. That is NOT what the site is. Private means private.
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I wasn’t saying that hosts can permit anyone to enter the home as they see fit. I was saying that so long as sitters are made aware ,and give their consent, a host could still have someone like a cleaning person come in their absence.
The issue would be having this person come without informing sitters and getting their okay. Or the sitter saying they weren’t okay with a certain person being there, but the host had them come anyway To me, that is what would ‘interfere with the sitter’s enjoyment of the property.’
I doubt if a host asked THS if they were allowed to have their cleaning person come while they are gone, it would say ‘no we don’t allow that regardless of whether the sitter is okay with it.’ They would almost certainly say it would be permitted so long as the sitter agreed.
And yes obviously, having a family member enter the home unannounced would not be okay.
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I’ve usually been offered the master, or offered to choose bedroom. But that might probably also be due to what sits I choose to apply to. I would not apply for this sit, mainly because of the unclarity of what one is really expected to do. There sure can be some expectations here also beyond pets. Incl. micromanagement and «surveillance» 
.
Now that you mention it, the «backup» you’re supposed to do say nothing on whether it is limited to the dogs. Could even be babysitting, period.
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For us it’s not having other people in our vicinity. We are self confessed hermits and love sitting with animals & not other humans.
The red flags on this one are “here’s the big house in the pics, BTW you’re in the annex”. “Daughter and family on site” in what guise? Help? Spy? Extra tasks? No thank you.
And this as @KC1102 says
Mutual exchange, respect, and balance for both parties to have full control of how the sit works from start to finish. 
#cleanlinesalltheway
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I’ve just pulled my application for something very similar for a couple of reasons (not the daughter).Red flags/gut feeling. Is it an NT house?
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I wouldn’t apply for this, there are too many variables about what might be needed. The discussion with the home owner may make it clearer but it still doesn’t mean the daughter’s expectations of back up will be the same. I reported a sit where a woman said her 14 year old son would be at home but at school in the day and she would leave all his meals to be microwaved. Oh and you had to get him up in the morning for breakfast and in time for him to leave for the bus. NO! It was 5 days, what parent leaves their child with a complete stranger. I just petsit I don’t mind looking after the garden but that doesn’t extend to care of family members, airbnb guests etc.
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How is it a pet sit if you’re not sharing the space with the pets? I personally wouldn’t apply for this - it doesn’t feel in the spirit of THS. Sounds like they need to pay for ‘back up”. Getting more and more disappointed that listings are clearly not being checked properly by THS. Saw one this morning with no house pics at all & previous reviews with issues around cleanliness. A new sitter might not read between the lines.
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I wasn’t going to, it felt like a passive aggressive reply to a fair question.
Don’t apply then wasn’t a response to a question at all. It was a response to your statement that it
‘Wouldn’t feel very private’
It certainly wasn’t meant as passive aggressive, just a very clear response to your statement.
If you feel the listing does breach THS policies then you can always report it and get a clear reply from THS.
I have reported 2 in the last 10 months. One for not allowing overnight stay, they only wanted the pets checked on in the day and one for having a lodger on site.
So I’m not saying don’t apply then in an indifferent way to a breach of policy but in a it obviously doesn’t suit you way.
I don’t think there is an issuse with the listing as you have described.
And
Further conversation with HO and daughter would answer all the endless imagined scenarios mentioned by others.
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We’ve done a few sits where the HO’s have owned other buildings on the same plot of land, or attached but as a separate dwellings.
We’ve done it with elderly parents living completely separately and independently, we have always enjoyed having a friendly familiar face, who knows all about TrustedHousesitters. They’ve always been a really pleasurable and enriching experiences for us, totally different to a normal sit. The space will still be exclusively yours, and we’ve never has any family members telling us how to care for their pets or property, in fact it’s the total opposite, there’s been total respect, but if you feel it isn’t as a private as you would like, then simply don’t apply.
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We did a sit with an “independent “ aged relative in a separate annex detached from the home.
Whilst the host did not expect anything other than we look after the hosts pets in the main home . On the other hand, the elderly relative expected us to :
spend every afternoon watching old films with them ,
allow them to come into the main home to “search for something they’d lost “ ,
tell them whenever we were going out
and take them to a Drs appointment.
Their impression was that we were being paid to do that !!!
Whilst the relative was living in a separate dwelling , and we didn’t do any of the above , it was quite stressful to navigate these scenarios every day .
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Eeek that sounds like a lot. I suppose you don’t truly know till you arrive what it will be like either.
I wouldn’t accept that. If the daughter is not able to look after dogs that live with her, there will be issues there. I’d say no. You could land in trouble. My idea of being a sitter is that you have the place to yourself, with the animals.
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So… the dogs live with the daughter and her sons.
But you’re to live in the AirBnB attached to it?
I’m not really understanding how you’re petsitting/housesitting or even have privacy in reality. Have they clarified if they mean “providing backup” as in, “our daughter takes care of the dog, but once in a while may need to have you walk it or leave it with you - with prior adequate notice”? Or no clarification or clarification such as “we expect you to be available instantly whenever my daughter wants you to take care of the dog, your plans/time and how that fits in is irrelevant. She does not need to give you any notice/warning”?
That IS a very vague and confusing way of phrasing things… it could mean just about anything in terms of how much interaction you’d. have, what kind of care and when you’d be giving, how they expect it, et cetera.
Could be a great. Could be a nightmare.
As to the third-party rule… I’d call it dodgy. But it doesn’t really apply when you aren’t actually following the THS system at all and are (in theory) being an occasionally needed neighbor instead of house/petsitter.
If they clarify things and it works for you, then go for it. If not, nah.
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Now, that part, about the images all being the house you wouldn’t be in and not the one you would… this seems like it’d point to a dodgy HO situation. The normal thing to do would be to show pictures of the place the sitter would be staying in… Or, if sometimes they have a sitter stay in one place and other times the other then showing pictures of both would be what a reasonable/honesty person would do.
They wouldn’t fully misrepresent the look of where folks would be staying, possibly as the equivalent of clickbait to get people to pause at their listing more often/longer.
The “wild card” is the main issue. I sit part time. If I choose a sit it’s because I want to explore that location. I also may be working and have other personal responsibilities as well. If I know what the pet care responsibilities normally are, then outside of emergencies I can plan my time. This sounds like a situation where daughter normally just shows up unannounced, mom and dad are usually home and they babysit their granddog. It’s never NOT convenient for them. I don’t want to travel somewhere to be live-next-door on-call dogsitter.
It violates the “pet ownership” clause although who knows maybe technically they do belong to the lister and not the daughter… The “new” guideline about “family” pets could apply if the daughter and the parents were both going away, but the pets would be staying with the sitter in the main house. It would also work if the dogs belonged to the listers and lived with them, but the daughter next door might be the back up if the sitters wanted to take a day trip.
The other part of this is privacy. So many sitters are upset even about the permitted outside cameras. This seems much more instrusive even if the third party isn’t in the living space. Part of what you’d be reviewed on would be based on your ongoing interactions with the daughter. That sounds like an awful spot to be in. It’s a mess in terms of boundaries.
I know that SOME sitters would be okay with this, and I don’t work for THS so it’s not my call as to whether or not it violates the rules. But there is simply no way no how that I would take this sit, and l certainly wouldn’t advise anyone to take it because the red flags are multiple and waving.
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Thank you for this discussion. It’s been helpful to me in my current house/petsit. I arrived at my 3-week housesit and was never informed that the girlfriend would be staying in the main house (I’m in the separate flat that shares a courtyard as the common entrance for both, with the two being about 20-25 feet apart and little privacy between them) for the duration of the sit. I didn’t know she existed at all, and even after I arrived it was only mentioned that she might be around from time to time to use the internet. She’s very pleasant but it adds a layer of forced social interaction that I didn’t sign up for, and the dog knows she’s right there and really wants to be with her. It’s been stressful for both me and the dog. But, it being a grey area/blurred line, I’ve been questioning whether I’m being oversensitive to the situation. I appreciate the discussion around this.
I’ve learned through this experience to ask questions that never would have occurred to me to ask previously, and to request that I be consulted about any changes to the arrangements and circumstances. Previously, I’ve only had completely positive experiences on this platform so I may have been naive about asking questions and explicitly stating what I need communicated for a successful sit!
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I don’t think there is a sitter out there that doesn’t have questions on their list that they learned to ask the hard way. If you’re lucky you’ll learn through these threads, but odds are, at some point, you’ll have your own direct experience.
Sorry you’re having to deal with that, it would drive me bonkers. Please do mention it in your review so no future sitters are similarly blindsided.
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I definitely plan to address this in my review, diplomatically but honestly. It’s his first time using the platform so there were no previous reviews to go on. I don’t think they meant to put me in an uncomfortable position, but it highlights an apparent reluctance to communicate! There have been other issues that have affected me significantly, too, that the HO seemed to be avoiding bringing up, maybe out of fear that they’d be dealbreakers for me. Unfortunately for me, I turned down three other offers during this time that would have been better situations for me (got those offers through word of mouth from the HO at my last sit, and she’s become a good friend so she has a good sense of what I’d be interested in) because I’d committed to this one. Had I known what I was getting into, I would have respectfully declined this one!
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