That makes sense. Minimum dates are a good idea especially with the new non-overlapping rule. HO should explain exact situation and dates in the listing - clearly. Not all Sitters feel comfortable spending the night with the HO present.
I have never been asked to come a day early or stay a day late, in 20+ Sits (not all are on THS). Not a judgment of any HO; just to say that all Sits and HO’s are different.
We have arrived at 7 am to a Sit, and we have left at 9 pm from a Sit when the HO was flying in. We make it work for everyone.
Agreed, main point I was making is that HO should be posting minimum dates needed and call out explicitly what that looks like.
This makes it a lot easier for HS to determine if it’s the right fit for them from a logistical and (in case of the other part I mentioned,) a fit/comfort perspective.
@PVGemini that sounds like you might have a car and the flexibility to do that. For myself relying on public transport travelling to a sit 80+ miles away, arriving the day before becomes the appropriate practical solution.
You are right! We have a car and always have another place to stay the night. I wonder if arriving the day before is more common in some countries than others. Hmmm…
@PVGemini in my own personal experience in Australia, it is more common than not for HO to want the sitter to stay the night before, also in the UK. I try to avoid it as much as I can because I really don’t like it but I do it if asked. Leaving on the final day I have never been asked to stay until the HO returns, I pretty much leave early unless it is dogs that need additional time.
I’ve done sits in the U.S. and U.K. and have mostly been invited to stay a night ahead, sometimes two. I’ve always flown in. I usually leave before my hosts return. We coordinate so the pets aren’t left for long and so there’s someone to look after the pets if the hosts are delayed.
On all our international sits, over 20 or so, we have done the night before with all the HOs other than maybe two of them. We did two nights on a big, complex rural sit with 36 animals in Thailand Even in our homeland of Turkey most want us for the night before as they always have dogs so that changes things, plus they tend to be sociable expats who are the hosts so they love eating & talking and hearing where we’ve been sitting and travelling
I guess you have retired expats there, with plenty of time and space
In the cases where I was not invited for dinner and the night before, they were also expats, but working, living in city apartments without guest bedrooms.
I have not found HOs that were “indigenous” to be any less sociable, on the contrary!
Good to know. That wasn’t my point. It’s unusual in Turkey for Turkish people to use house sitters @pietkuip as it’s not culturally the norm. Dogs are often for security not kept as pets. Hence why it’s mostly expats (some working, some not) that we sit for when we’re here Different when we sit in Europe.
Even in our homeland of Turkey most want us for the night before as they always have dogs so that changes things, plus they tend to be sociable expats who are the hosts so they love eating & talking and hearing where we’ve been sitting and travelling 
Different when we sit in Europe.