Hi, I thought it would be fun to share our lists of the strangest choices for the cover picture.
Mine is:
I think the toilet had the seat up too, didn’t it? 
Now that you mention it, I think it did!
Some are strange to me, because they show messes. Like who’s so lazy or clueless that they show you their unmade bed or messy bathroom and think others would want to stay there?
I can never understand why listings have a picture of a sunset as the first photo.
Yes, the sky does that everywhere sometimes? What does the house look like?
Pets with the heads/faces not showing
That’s right! Sometimes I am not sure if it’s a furry rug or a pet.
It’s true those pictures don’t say much about a house but, trying to find an explanation, I assume that’s the view you get from the house. No matter how hard I try to find an explanation for a toilet or a shot at the plain floor I can’t think of any. Should I assume that having floor or toilet makes the house unique or different from all the others?
Off topic, but that reminds me of a recent incident where somebody posted on Facebook that they saw a dead (black fluffy) dog lying on a street near me. I have a microchip scanner so I jumped in my car to see if I could scan it and find the owners.
You guessed it - it was a bath mat. And not chipped 
For a while, quite a few home owners in the UK would year round have a cover picture of their house in a thin dusting of snow…
Now when I go housesitting in summer, I have no desire to be reminded of the depths of winter…
Also some people put a picture of the outside of their house on rainy, gloomy day… really? That’s definitely going to excite sitters to apply!!
Good point!
The picture should be inviting. No need to take the picture when the weather is awful.
Yes, and also Christmas tree pics in July…
Any listing photo of a bathroom showing the toilet with an open lid. Yuck, next please!
I agree that the lid should always be closed down. But here in Thailand, where I currently live, all the real estate photos have the lid open, to show that the toilet is clean. Different culture 
That’s so interesting to learn!
I love this forum!
The other day I had to look at the whole listing as every single photo of the house showed an untidy cluttered mess.
In the description it stated that the house will look a lot better when the sitter arrives as the HO did not have time to tidy it!
I would still prefer not to take that risk @Itchyfeet. What if they ran out of time again before the sitter arrived?
I wouldn’t take or publish photographs until I had time to prepare the house.
Exactly
I carefully expand photos to inspect every aspect of the house
A cover photo of a tile floor with a small, dark ball on it… interesting…
I’m looking at one right now that is not selling their listing at all. It appears to be the corner of an asphalt driveway with a bit of grass