It’s been requested multiple times over many years. I wouldn’t hold your breath even though it would make both our and their lives easier. For some reason they prefer to break the alert system than implement useful and requested functionality that would improve the site.
LOL OMG wut 
I’m kinda sorry to read this listing has been removed before I got a chance to see it! 
Member should be taken off the platform. Unfortunately there would probably be no further action like alerting authorities to a child welfare check. What has this person done every other time they’ve gone away for work?
I also do not agree that a 14-year-old is mature enough to be left alone for an entire week.
It’s frequently questioned here “how did THS approve this post?” I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that promises the company will preapprove posts. Why do people assume that?
THS don’t pre approve posts on the forums .
The comments are about new listings which THS claim have a thorough manual check before they are approved to be published . This approval process is supposedly “to ensure that all sits adhere to our Code of Conduct, Terms and Conditions, and pet parent guidelines.”
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Yes I was referring to listings and I didn’t know that THS says they manually approve all of them. I agree that it certainly doesn’t seem to be the case when we’ve all seen listings that clearly violate the codes. Thanks for the clarification.
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I’m really curious about this : where there pictures of the kid? I mean, any good house sit has at least a few pics of the pet doing funny things. Maybe a shot of the kid doing homework?
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@buildabearwithme I saw a very similar listing in the UK, where it stated a young teenage boy would be staying home. I reported it and the listing was removed, but then reappeared minus the reference to the young person. One has to hope the hosts had made alternative arrangements for their boy, and didn’t just intend springing their childminding expectations on an unsuspecting sitter who accepted the sit.
I’ve noticed these hosts have posted several listings since, and always wonder what their sit involves, now.
@Happypets Have you read any sitter reviews of this UK listing since it reappeared?
Ive reported a sit that I found suspicious and THS says no it’s fine, it’s legitimate. I found that hard to believe as four or so of the six sitters, different people, had dates that started and stopped on the same day, in other words no overnight stay just one day and have all these great reviews. Looked very weird to me but I probably won’t waste my time reporting any in the future.
Don’t let the bad guys win. Please continue to report when you see something off.
Diana
@DianaO well it took me quite a few times with the chat to get thru and the responses didn’t address what I was saying and so I emailed instead and the response I got back in the end was it’s all OK. To me it obviously wasn’t but I tried! I’ll do it if it looks dangerous (like someone advertising someone to look after their kids) but I don’t think I’ll waste my time otherwise 
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LOL right. To be fair, there probably aren’t enough people to thoroughly check every listing when there are thousands worldwide. But even a bot algorithm should be able to flag a listing that states “shared home” right in the title and a description that explains you’ll be living with the HO’s roommate. 
@DianaO You’re correct, and indeed, they do not. A representative from their support team even confirmed this when contacted: they do NOT verify listings manually - the level of security is not comparable to the way they vet Housesitters. Therefore, their stated assurance of approving each listing seems inaccurate.
I checked up on your concerns about the sit you found suspicious - assuming it’s the one you contacted us about in September - and after speaking to the Membership Services team, I just wanted to assure you that the sitter and reviews are genuine.
Membership Services asked me to let you know that they have thoroughly investigated again and can confirm the reviews are genuine. The issue with how the dates look is due to the reviews concerned being over a decade old - there have been changes and updates to the review system since then which means the dates look a bit different on the current system. The date issue has been reported as a bug for some really old reviews.
As this is logged with MS, the team may reach out to you about your concerns, and they’ll be happy to answer any additional concerns you might have.
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Hi @biscuit
That doesn’t sound right - I checked with the MS team and they confirmed that we absolutely do verify listings manually. We read and review the entire listing for accuracy, and adherence to our Code of Conduct and Terms of Service, reach out if there are any discrepancies, and ask for additional information and photos wherever necessary.
Your Forum email address doesn’t bring up any member details, so in order for us to investigate the information you received in more detail, we’d need you to drop us a line as we wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong impression. You’re welcome to pop me a DM with the email address you’re signed up to THS with so that I can pass it to the team, or you can contact MS directly by emailing support@trustedhousesitters.com 
@Jenny Good to know. It’s a shame someone didn’t give me the reason at the time! 
Good to know it was just a bug. That said I didn’t apply as I thought it was dodgy.
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I hear what you’re saying, it would have been helpful to give you some context! I’ve made sure the feedback reached the right people so I’m hoping it’s just a one off - though I’m sorry it impacted you!
Sorry, but none of us believe this. There are WAYYYYYYYYYYY too many listings out there that are in violation in various ways for them to all be manually approved.
If they’re going to stick to this story that they manually review every aspect of every listing then I’d be curious to know why so many which are obviously in violation are approved and live.
Like the one this post is about where the sitter is expected to share the space with a child. If MS insists that they manually approve all listings how did this get approved?
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In my experience, the listing is checked when it’s first published (= first set of dates published). It takes hours to get that first listing out.
But after that, the listing is not re-checked. When I add new dates, the listing goes live immediately. So here the HO can edit their listing however they want, and it is not checked again.
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I fed that back to the team.
They’ve asked me to share this follow up:
“We’d like to assure you that we do manually approve all listings. It is possible that a listing can be edited by an owner at a later date when adding new dates, therefore we also spot check listings with new dates, and rely on the overall THS community to reach out to us if they spot anything of concern.”
I’d recommend contacting MS about this directly if you’d like to discuss in any more detail, and if I’m made aware of any listings with issues, I’ll always pass them over to the team and ask them to follow up with the HO. I understand everyone’s concerns about listings that might have a violation, and the Forum team will do their best to support our members in making sure they get looked at.
I’ve noticed talk of a “report” button for listings from Forum members and while I can’t personally make that happen, I’ll be sure to keep mentioning wherever there’s an opportunity.
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