Why can THS not have in place a better way for sitters to screen out undesirable sits? Should it not be a requirement that the owner posts clear pictures of sitter accommodation, whether the pets are spayed or neutered, car parking space, public transport facilities, accurate dates of start and end dates when owners are coming and going and an agreement that they will play by the rules. I just had one prospective sit who clearly said “I don’t care about the rules”. Needless to say if he did not care, then I did not care to do that sit. And yes, some feel that they have the ability to change the rules to suit themselves and not respect the THS rules that sitters are trying to follow.
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Bravo!
Some want others to do the work that is theirs to do.
One cannot expect others to meet their needs. It is an individual’s responsibility to find what they are seeking.
Be the change if you want to see the world.
The world doesn’t change for you.
I’ll go back to my happy place now.
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These are the type of questions we should be asking ourselves before we confirm the sit - All sitters have different criteria so, as if often said on this forum, it is all about communication
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I think it depends on what customers expect of THS. We pay for a service, and some believe that they are not getting what they pay for. We have a right to expect certain service levels when we are paying customers of the business. Some customers have higher expectations than others, and that’s not necessarily wrong.
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Absolutely people have expectations based on their beliefs of what they feel they are entitled to and what they have been conditioned to accept as normal in their mind.
However that can lead to a great deal of dissatisfaction if one is not willing to adapt and work with what is available.
When you travel to another country or go into someone else’s home, you have to be the one to adapt. Expecting to find everything to be to your liking and complain about it only sets you up for failure, an unhappy experience.
It is not wrong to have expectations. We should all have high expectations.
But we have to know what we say yes to and what we say no to. We can only do that by ourselves. By doing our own work of discovery.
And we have to know when to walk away from anything that doesn’t meet our expectations vs continuously expecting and demanding the situation to change.
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There are so many opportunities on here and just move on from ones that don’t suit you. There is no way the site can guarantee anything really to either the sitter or the owner. Honestly so many people complain about so much on here that is just not worth complaining about. This is an awesome opportunity and you have to let it be what it is.
We all have to take responsibility for our choices and there are always risks an assignment may not turn out well, the sitter isn’t good, the owner misrepresented something, etc…I do think these are rarer instances though.
Unless the site decides to change its model to being some sort of official agency that directly facilitates the matches, no matter what additional services and support they offer, they will remain at the core , nothing more than a site meant to connect owners and sitters.
If people aren’t posting properly, that is your choice is you feel the need to police the listings and report them…you don’t have to. Just don’t apply to the assignment if you have any suspicions about it or you feel it isn’t giving you enough info. If you don’t feel comfortable with an owner after you initiate communication, withdraw your application.
If people don’t respond to your message, move on. All this complaining about it, and requesting the site make rules about having to respond, and the like, is just silly in my opinion.
This topic brings to mind something I often think about the site (which I am personally happy with) as it does operate very differently in many respects.
I think they are giving people the perception they can do things for them they ultimately can’t; they are creating expectations that can’t be met. I don’t think this is intentional though.
What can THS ultimately do if a sitter is unhappy at a sit and contacts them about it?
What can they ultimately do if an owner tells them their sitter cancelled last minute or the sitter is leaving mid sit for whatever reason? It’s not like they are an agency that directly facilitates these matches, contracts with sitters and can offer a replacement.
I don’t expect the site to do anything for me but provide the listings. Not for nothing, the yearly membership is the cost of one night in an average hotel. It’s not like we are paying them thousands of dollars.
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This is wisdom and a healthy mature response.
You do bring some constructive insight.
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@KC1102 I am one of the 
to your recent post here, but one just wasn’t enough for me. 
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Exactly! @Snowbird I am with you there:
The only two things that really need to be updated by THS are the review system and the availability calendar. Everything else can be sorted out by the members themselves.
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I do not expect the site to do my vetting but it would help when owners and sitter initially join THS that they give basic information and that the system does not allow them to gain membership until all the essential information is supplied. It goes without saying that if there are no replies, you move onto the next. It just requires a good computer system to handle the input of important information. It should not require extra staff if the initial set up is fully completed? Yes there will be cancellations but there is a good system in place to help deal with these scenarios
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Sharing thoughts about what experiences you have is not complaining but raising ideas that others might have to deal with sooner or later. This is supposed to be just a forum to chat about almost anything pet related. Not everything has to be warm and fuzzy and for one, I learn a lot about how others handle difficult situations.
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Well said. We concur whole heartedly.
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While I agree with much of what you say here, it just really irks me that some Owners do not provide an accurate location for their home. I see this every day in listings for San Francisco, California. The map dot shows the home in San Francisco, the Owner’s listing title has the phrase “San Francisco” within it, the city under the listing photo says “San Francisco,” but the home is not really in San Francisco. Really? Do you think that is OK? Owners can lie in their listing, and it is the responsibility of the Sitters to ask the right questions? I think not.
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I always ask for the address (if the location isn’t apparent) before I’m willing to accept. I want to take a look at the neighbourhood and general area on google street view before I accept a sit.
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I would rather have an accurate location BEFORE applying!
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Me too, although I can totally understand why they aren’t going to post the actual address on THS. I do wish the name of the town, village, or neighbourhood was clearly shared though.
In most cases, there is enough information and external photos that allow me to find the house on googlemaps anyway. So long as I have enough location information - the kind of village, the distance to amenities, the photos of the house inside and out, I’m fine with applying even if I don’t know the precise location. But I do ask for it before we accept.
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Yes, we agree that it would be nice to know what town the Owner lives in. Currently, the Owner can state whatever town they desire. They can state a town that is many, many miles away from where they really live. The listing should be an accurate representation of the town/city, as accurate as possible.
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Yep, that’s annoying for sure.
In my case, we are always searching for small villages in England and France. Homeowners often put the larger nearby town and maybe, “5 min drive” or “3 miles to…” I ended spending a lot of time zooming over google maps trying to figure out where it is so I know if it’s the kind of village I want to stay in. If I can’t find it, I often don’t both applying.
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yeah… this. annoying. According to the map, EVERY sit in “Nashville” takes place on the lawn of the courthouse. So many neighborhoods are so very different.
I wish it was more like AirBnB or Rover where you got a “x-mile” radius/range of where the house was located.
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I get what you’re saying - I also wish there was more detail on the website, perhaps adding few lines to the form, so that all the owners have to do is check off a box that says “free parking onsite” or “street parking with meters” or “no on-site parking available” and so on.
I do hate the feeling of giving a homeowner what feels like a 3rd degree interrogation about the minutia of their home, pets, parking, what-have-you.
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