How do you incorporate date flexibility into a listing? For example, I need a sitter from about July 29 to August 20, but those dates are not set in stone. If someone can do a large chunk of that, I can probably get my neighbor or a friend to cover a few days on either end, or even hire a regular sitter for part of the time. But if someone specifies they are looking for a sit during the dates of, say, August 1 - 15, my listing would not show up in their search, even though they might be a good fit. How do I get around this?
Identifying the flexibility in the listing title (which you have done) is helpful.
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Krhazler you are in the same position of thousands of homeowners. Previously I would have said enter your dates as long as possible to enable people to engage with you around flexibility and allow you to receive as many applicants as possible. Unfortunately somebody at THS have changed the rules, much to me and many other sitters dismay, there have been well over a 1000 comments on the community forum complaining. So it means if we are booked elsewhere and those dates cross with yours then we are not allowed to communicate with you. Very sad as in todays world we can usually all cope with a little flexibility with neighbours etc. In addition they have restricted HO’s to only be able to receive 5 applicants. So again this discriminates against other timezones as 5 can be reached very quickly. Maybe put FLEXIBLE in title and do listing as 2 to 17 Aug - to try and capture everyone! Then reject unsuitables asap to enable other people to apply. Good luck!
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I wondered that as well. The Website tells us to indicate date flexibiloity but I was not able to discover HOW.
@krhazler A possible idea! If you want to catch people looking for a shorter sit- how about listing 2 (or more) sets of dates of 1/2 weeks each. In the listing intro-at the top- you could state directly that you are looking for sitters for either/all/a mixture of the dates. That you are open for discussion on exact dates. That should cover most bases!
We frequently see attractive listings that overlap a booked sit by one or more days but which we could probably manage. However we are blocked from making contact at all. What I’ve managed to do a couple times is - if the HO has other dates listed I apply via another date option and express our interest in the dates that are blocked by a 2 day overlap! Worth a try.
However there are always lots of sitters who like month long sits - (e.g we are currently doing 5 weeks in the south of France)- but the suggestion above could give you more options.
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Don’t cut it up in periods that get too short, because sitters may also use the filter for Duration where one of the steps is “two weeks +”.
So maybe three sets of dates? A long one in the middle and short ones at the beginning and at the end?
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I think the advice to simply indicate flexibility is better than chopping up your dates into shorter periods. If the ideal is one sitter/couple for the whole time, and I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be, then I’d list the dates I need covered and hope to find one who can do it all. Stating flexibility and openness to considering applications for partial dates could still get the multiple sitters for shorter periods if it comes to that.
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