And I’ve just realized today that once your are invited by a HO you can answer without ticking “apply” or “cancel”… Just can chat before applying !
I learn every day on THS ! 
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Hello fellow sitters! Greetings from sunny Sydney Australia. Just wondering if there is a way to reach out to pet owners on my favourites list (who advertised before), who isnt advertising for a sit now. I wanted to reach out and for the pet owner to consider me for future sits. Sorry if this question was asked previously. If it was, can you direct me where to find the post? Thanks so much!!!
Here’s one example:
Thanks for the link @Smiley ! Read the other posts on this topic and got my answer. Unfortunately there is no way to contact HO if there is no live date (unless you sat for them in the past).
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That’s correct. I think it would be a nuisance for owners and sitters to be contact outside of a listing if you didn’t know them. Even when there’s a listing, some owners don’t respond….
I am a sitter and would like to send a message to a pet-house owner, how can I send a message without ticking to say I can do their set dates?
I would like to visit family in that specific location, but can not do their current dates. So rather than waiting and maybe no future dates coming up because they’ve found friends or family to cover, I’d rather reach out to let them know I am here for the future.
So, how can I send a message without having to tick to say I am applying for their set dates?
Hi @HappyDeb. You raise a great question, one that comes up from time to time. I moved your question here to this earlier conversation, so you can see how others have responded.
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@HappyDeb The simple answer is you can’t send a message without ticking the Apply to Sit box. There is no separate messaging system. I sometimes contact hosts about future dates or to ask other questions. In the past I used to just start my message saying this is not an application! But these days, with the 5 app limit, I don’t want to take up one of the 5 spaces unless I am really applying so… if I only wish to establish a connection- I later cancel my application- after the host has seen my message. My message then remains but the application space is freed up. When the host has live dates it is the only window of opportunity to make direct contact so grab the chance!
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Thanks @Lokstar , that’s exactly what I did, ticked the apply box, then un-ticked it after I’d sent the message, but I thought there was maybe a different way. Oh well, I’ll just keep doing it that way. Thanks for letting me know that’s the only way. Appreciate it. 
Not sure if this will help @HappyDeb but if you add a listing to your Favorites, you’ll get a notification the next time they add new dates.
Hello-
I have a question for home owner/pet parents. How do you feel about a sitter applying for a sit that they can’t fulfill to establish a contract with the HO?
Before the 5 application limit, I didn’t see it as a problem but now I’m afraid that I might upset or at least annoy someone.
My thinking is this. We are world travelers and currently booked up for months. I have a tentative plan to be in a certain area in the future but am completely flexible at this time. I see a sit for a time coming up that I can’t fulfill but looks like a good fit for both of us. Is it ok to apply and have them immediately decline it? I want to establish contact with the individual in case they have any needs during the timeframe I’ll be in the area and it’s early enough I can tailor my travel plans to fit their needs.
As a HO would you rather I do that or mark your profile as favorite, and wait to see your need a sit in the future.
Thanks for any feedback you can provide.
Dan and Nan
Hi Dan and Nan,
As a sitter, I was thinking exactly the same thing the other day. Once you contact the owner you apply for the sit. It’s a shame there isn´t an ‘ask homeowner a question’ button. As I’m not a HO I can’t answer your question but I can only imagine it’s annoying to people in top locations who get very many applicants, and to those with fewer applicants less so.
Also I think when the HO answers your query they can also press decline which would then free up room for other applicants.
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I have contacted homeowners on a few occasions when I haven’t been available on the dates they have advertised.
They have appeared interested and have kept me in mind.
It would be nice to have a messaging system to contact homeowners without having to apply for the housesit to show interest in the future.
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@MustLoveCats
I’ve done it a several times and a couple didn’t respond but a few seemed positive. I’m just hoping to get HO opinions to make sure I’m not upsetting and possibly hurting future opportunities.
I am a fellow sitter and that is something I have never done. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it per se, but with the attitude I have towards booking sits, I don’t tend to do anything ‘extra’ to help secure them whether it is sending a ‘keep me in mind’ message or trying to apply to a sit where I don’t meet specified criteria and hope to convince the HO to choose us anyway.
If I were a HO that would probably irk me a bit, but that is based on projecting my own preferences onto them. Some probably do feel that way and some probably don’t.
With the new 5 applicant rule, I personally don’t think sitters should do this for the ‘popular’ sits. While the HO can simply decline your application, they vary in how long they take to read messages. So a sitter could be taking up a spot in the first 5, and the owner may not decline it for days, and someone who could actually do the sit misses out on applying.
I have seen sitters here say they apply to open a line of communication and then cancel it–I imagine they assume this will adjust the applicant count, but I don’t know that it does.
I have withdrawn a few applications after being in the first 5 and the sit being ’ in review’ due to lack of communication from the HO, and I did not see the listing go live again. I imagine at that point, even if the applicants dropped below 5, the HO would have to manually unpause the listing, and it wouldn’t revert status automatically.
If a sitter were to cancel an application before it hit 5 and the listing was still live on the site, I wonder if that would have an impact on the ‘submitted’ count. I suspect it wouldn’t but clarification on that from THS would be good as I would be interested in knowing that.
As someone who works online and visits the site numerous times throughout the day most days, I have noticed a number of ‘popular’ sits get posted again, often more than once.
When I first started seeing that, I would sometimes read the listing to see if they made any adjustments to it, and I noticed with greater frequency that they are adding a note in the beginning to only apply if you can do the listed dates, which leads me to believe they are getting a lot of ‘keep me in mind’ type messages, and it is probably frustrating them. And I notice more listings noting this right off the bat, which again, leads me to believe they dealt with this problem on previous dates.
While my ‘findings’ can’t be used to make any definitive statements about how a majority of HO’s feel about this, I suspect that most with a highly desirable sit especially aren’t a huge fan of those messages.
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I believe I’ve read in previous posts on the forum, when you mark favourites on your iPhone and others on your iPad and for those using a computer where one is using the website rather than the app, your favourites list are different? Is this so? Why don’t the lists sync?
Also, people need to have push notifications on, on their devices in order to receive notifications when the homeowner posts a sit.
@Danandnan I have on occasion ‘applied’ for a sit I am interested in- just to make contact and express interest for future dates. I used to wait till the HO had seen the msg and replied then cancel the app. Recently I discovered I can send the message, cancel the application immediately, and the message still remains. This is good as I don’t like taking up 1 of the 5 spots if its not a real application so I’m happy to see that this procedure seems to work.
If I was a host I think I would appreciate potential future sitters reaching out in this way- as long as their application does not block 1 of the 5 for the advertised dates.
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I’m a HO and sitter. It wouldn’t bother me, but I don’t live in one of the very popular locations.
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Hi @ACLRJM Yes, to confirm, the favourites are displayed differently between the App and the website. The product team is well aware, and they are constantly working on all features to align the website and App. As it stands, I think the ‘favourites’ displays better on the App.
To also confirm, that no matter where you save a ‘favourite’, be it on the website or the App, as long as your ‘push notifications’ are on your phone, you will receive notifications on your phone of any new dates from your ‘favourites’ lists. There are no notifications sent to the website.
