Sitters are in a vulnerable position, especially if they are travelling abroad, travelling to a remote location, sitting alone, and/or responsible for animals that can potentially be dangerous. Sitters rely on feedback from other sitters to make decisions about whether or not a sit is safe or a good fit for them. It is therefore extremely important to be honest in your feedback.
Here are some tips for how to do that:
-
If you are concerned that providing negative feedback about the host will affect your own reviews, request and obtain your own review before leaving feedback. You can then leave honest feedback about the host (which they will have the opportunity to respond to on their own profile). Once the host has given you a review, they CANNOT alter it, nor can they leave additional comments on your profile, so your profile as a sitter will not be affected. Until/unless THS does mutually blind reviews, this is the best way to be honest about a difficult sit/host without it affecting your future sits.
-
If you’re not comfortable with this, please consider giving 4 (instead of 5) stars, and use coded language. For example:
*“Fred (the dog) is sweet but is very excitable, and struggles to control himself when other dogs are around.”
*“Fred means well but it took him a few days to get comfortable with us, and could at times be challenging to handle”
*“Fred loves chasing his ball in the park, and could benefit from some additional off-lead training to improve his recall”
*“The animals were lovely but were a lot to handle for one person”
*“The home location was great and exactly as described, although there wasn’t much space for my belongings”
*“The home is super spacious and was made more comfortable after I did a proper cleaning upon arrival.”
These are ways to let other sitters know there are potentially some issues, and it gives them the information they need to ask more detailed questions.
Please remember it is in both hosts’ and sitters’ interests to have honest reviews about sits - if a house is not very clean, for example, it is helpful that future applicants know this because it will attract sitters who aren’t bothered by it. Similarly, if a dog has challenging behaviour (something many hosts don’t report, or even aren’t aware of because they have habituated to it), it is far better that in future, only sitters who are comfortable handling that behaviour apply for the sit. This benefits both sitters and hosts.
Tl;dr: Please think of other sitters when leaving your reviews!
