I too noticed the posts had apparently reduced. Perhaps they are trying to keep it below 1000.
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it’s one of the thread which had got an extraordinary amount of replies, in a very short time.
2 friends of mine had suggested I could join THS, I went on the forum first and obviously they dont ( or don’t anymore) participate : none of them has been informed they were limited in their search of sitters.
One told me this is why I received a weird application telling me “full application will follow later on” but none has folllowed.
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I have no objection to a company trying to increase profitability and agree fulltime and more frequent sitters have built their reputation taking different levels of sits.
This change has not been communicated to their customer base and is deliberately under the wire. I think we can conclude based on this forum that a big percentage of the uninformed members would be upset by this change in their terms and conditions.
We can work around it but not if we are prevented from even seeing the sit because of time zone issues. This can’t be discounted, it is a major problem for many of us.
This will not be the only change we see this is just the beginning .
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Your conclusion makes no sense. As I previously said, there is a type of person who joins forums. We do not know how the 90%+ are reacting to this change. We don’t even know if it has filtered through to the majority. I’m on the site everyday as a full time sitter. I am aware of people only use it once or twice a year. It really depends on how you use the site whether this change will have a huge impact on you.
This is not the first major change in THS to increase profits. They have already implemented the tiered membership for both pet owners and sitters. There were as many against that but it is still a part of the company.
In the words of my beloved late grandmother “suck it up buttercup”
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The posts were 1001 before the weekend shutdown. When it reopened, there were 953
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Totally agree with this. Some people are impacted a lot, others not at all. For us, if we stick with the UK as we’ve done in the past 4 years, I don’t think we will have any trouble finding sits. But if we focus on France and Italy in 2023 as we had planned, we will be impacted.
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@expat I too noticed the posts had apparently reduced. Perhaps they are trying to keep it below 1000.
I wonder if someone leaves the forum, do their posts disappear? I have noticed that some people have posted multiple comments in this thread - 10,20, 30 and even 60+ comments in one case - so that could explain the reduction
Harder but not impossible. We are trying to acquire sits in South America for the winter. You can imagine how popular these sits are. I used my
“hi I’m ****, I really want to apply for your sit but can’t at the moment. I’ll write out my proper application in about an hour. “ I did all my research, decided to apply, had a video call yesterday and we are going to Costa Rica for four weeks. Yes, I’d rather do it slowly with think and discussion time but things have to adapt with changes. We have lost the ability to apply to some because of this change but my philosophy is it wasn’t meant to be.
Good luck. Italy is a fantastic country. The food is to die for and the ice cream??? Don’t miss out Sissily.
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Yep, that’s our plan. However, so far, we missed the five that have been posted because they come up overnight and when I click on the notification, they are already reviewing applications. I’m taking a screenshot of every one so I can keep track. I’d love the opportunity to even apply for one tbh.
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Ones just come up in Luca, Italy. Hurry, hurry,hurry
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@Kelownagurl I just joined a House Sit Italy FB page. My membership is pending approval, but it might be worth a look for you.
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I’ll check it out, thanks!
@Angela-HeadOfCommunity @Vanessa-ForumCMgr what is the end goal of this thread? What value is it adding to the forum at this point?
I only found out about the trial because I saw it being discussed in a FB group and confirmed it with a member of THS who I’m connected with. So…thinking I might have missed an official announcement, I asked around 10 people I know are involved with the site if they knew about it- either home owners I’ve sat for and am now friends with (including my current sit) or new sitters I referred and helped with their profile and application templates. None of them knew about the change. None of them like it, nor can see how it might improve their experience. In fact they can see the obvious drawbacks. Several are quite angry at the change and the fact they weren’t made aware of it.
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I think this thread will help alert members to the new policy, because many (most?) of them don’t know about it. I have personally spoken with three members who had no idea it existed.
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@Candide, I’m so glad you mentioned the disappearing posts, I was beginning to think I was losing my mind. I saw 1001 comments the other day and then it dropped to around 960. I then convinced myself that maybe I had dreamt it (because this ridiculous situation is haunting my dreams). I found it hard to believe that THS would be so duplicitous as to delete so many comments.
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What can I say that hasn’t already been said by literally hundreds of members? I can only add that we, as long-time successful TH members will not be renewing our membership. We have also - with great embarrassment - informed those to whom we had recently recommended TH that they consider this new policy before joining.
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But it shouldn’t be a done deal. This forum is showing how unpopular this change is. With these responses showing the dissatisfaction and possible loss of many members, maybe a change back or compromise should be considered. If you can make the change in the first place, there is no reason it can’t be reversed or changed.
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But THS has NOT conveyed this information in any format except the forum. We became aware of this new policy only by accident and after we had wondered why, after many successful years of membership, we weren’t finding any sits that matched our criteria.
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I couldn’t have said it better. While we haven’t been at THS quite as long (only several dozen 5* sits), we also feel that we have been thrown under the bus for the sake of THS acquiring new members.
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