@Pips thanks. My message to them was along those lines and they came back with responses to our concerns. It just makes the back and forward become a bit awkward as I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings as obviously HO love where they live and I feel like I’m saying, yeah it’s ok but not great.
For what it’s worth, I think you handled it well. Some people just can’t take no for an answer! I hope this doesn’t deter you from explaining yourself in the future, because as a HO, I would find that information potentially very helpful! Obviously I can’t change the location of my home, but I’m sure there are other things about my home, my dogs, the way I interact with potential sitters, etc. that could be improved. Sometimes when you’re too close to the situation, it’s hard to notice it yourself, so it’s helpful to have an “outsider” point it out!
@Greensheep thanks. It’s good to have a HO perspective. Also interesting that you’d welcome that type of feedback, good to know.
I’ve done video chats on all my perspective sits except two of them. The others were over the phone. I’ve yet to decline after a video chat. In some cases despite always offering a video chat I’ve had HO’s prefer phone calls. A few of my sits were local so I went to meet them in person prior to the sit. I still think it’s beneficial to do a video chat to see if it’s a good Match. Funny, my current sit the HO offered it to me before even talking to me based off my reviews. In the application I even stated to arrange a zoom or video chat beforehand. I ended up trusting my gut after reading the description so I got lucky. This particular HO is young so not sure that is why. It was also over 8 months in advance to it could of been that.
@TheNomads you have handled this well. Some people however can’t deal with rejection (for many reasons) and get defensive which in this case it sounds like this home owner has. What happens then is they find counter arguments for every little bit of reasoning you put forward. Everytime you offer more reasons it’s like you are adding fuel to the fire. You need to remove the opportunity for them to latch on for their new counter argument.
After a career of dealing with these “combative” situations, where people just won’t accept your answer, the best way of responding after your initial reply explaining why the sit is not a good fit, is to not justify your position just keep repeating a simple but polite “no thanks, I’m no longer interested”. If they come back with “why aren’t you interested…” just repeat the same “I’m no longer interested” don’t justify just repeat, repeat, repeat. They will get tired of this and move on.
If it’s any consolation you have probably dodged a bullet with this sit.
@Crookie good advice, thank you. I don’t think it was a bullet dodging sit on this occasion, just new HO to house sitters so from their perspective I think they were just trying to alleviate our concerns but from our standpoint just made the whole situation a bit awkward.
All a learning curve and no doubt will get easier the more sits we do 
@Catgoddess_99
It’s interesting how different peoples views are in regards to choosing a sitter isn’t it. Our first sit was an initial messaging via the platform with a video call for the following day. We also went to see the HO as was only an hour from home. Second sit was initial messaging and a visit and the sit we are currently on the HO confirmed us just from messages although after confirming sit we did come and meet them as again, less than 5 miles from our other sot we were on. All have worked well and good rapport between everyone.
Hi @TheNomads,
Gosh, my sitter history is surprisingly similar. For my first sit I also drove an hour to meet in person, before confirming. Second sit was just messaging, then meeting for the sit handover that morning. Third sit we just messaged, and we’ve never met each other in person, Lol. But all worked out, win-win.
I also have a hard time saying no and don’t want to disappoint people. Maybe it’s a personality thing. “Does more than the job requires?” I am learning to be better at setting boundaries. It normally comes down to me having to be more honest and not feel guilty about it.
In your case for this last potential sit, it’s still not clear to me why you didn’t want to do it. Regardless, if it was just a gut instinct, then just say that. Like, “I checked the sit location via Google street view. For some reason I don’t know how to describe, I’m not comfortable sitting.”
If there’s a specific reason, I would just spell it out clearly but kindly. Like, “I checked the sit location via Google street view. There’s a power substation very close to your home, and that’s a dealbreaker for me. I’m sorry.” And if they want to engage in a further discussion about that, you can, or you can just say you don’t want to discuss it further.
For me, one of the boundaries I’m learning to protect is a good night’s sleep!
Keep sitting! =)
@geoff.hom
Very similar! I did think about always saying we’d go visit prior to confirming a sit but soon realised that it’s not always viable and also takes a lot of time out of a day if an hours drive each way plus a couple of hours with a home owner. If offering to do that every time, while on a current sit it means being away from the pets you’re currently responsible for so we’re now only offering a meet up if very close to where we’re currently staying. Video chats or phone calls for everything else!
That’s a good idea about saying just don’t get a vibe because sometimes it’s nothing tangible just ‘something’ that doesn’t draw me in.
We’re currently watching a sit, in an area we’d like to go back to, for dates we’re available and it’s one cat, leaving loads of time for us to go exploring the area, but I just can’t get excited about applying for some unknown reason. Sub conscious kicking in I guess!
Happy sitting too
Not video chat, but talking on the phone. I turned her down after she played games with me. One of my worst experiences with HOs.
9 times out of 10, I need to do video chats and usually they end well.