Hey all, this is my first post on the forum, and its long because i feel totally diseartened.
We (little cat sitting family) joined THS last summer, and since then have completed 6 sits. We also did one externally (return sit, got an external reference on here), and returned to one of the THS ones twice.
Up until the new year, of 20 sits I applied for, 14 were successful. A few didn’t happen due to changing circumstances (on both sides - all communicated with good time, no issues, just life), a couple had already arranged for other sitters to come but liked us and asked us to do other dates (which we couldn’t do unfortunately), a couple I chanced it even though I knew we couldn’t do the whole time and fair enough, was rejected, and a couple we agreed on further conversation , that it wasn’t the right fit. all fine, no issues, and I didn’t have any negative feelings about any of it. We had some really wonderful opportunities, met some gorgeous cats and just really enjoyed it.
Fast forward to the new year -i have applied for no less than 55 sits, nearly all saying family friendly… 80% haven’t bothered replying and just rejected, a couple were accepted but again life circs changed, one was accepted and then we met and not right fit, and a couple have said they would have loved to have us but they had already arranged with the first applicant.
So we have accepted and completed 1 sit out of all those! and the host didn’t even leave a review despite me writing her one, asking for one after a week, and now the window has closed so it’s no longer a possibility.
I would have loved to apply for another sit for them as it was our favourite to date , but 'm feeling so anxious that we did something to upset them - there was a breakage while we were there (a cat jumped on the cat frame thing and it came out of the wall damaging the plaster - I offered to pay , but she said no as it should have held the weight of the cat which is true tbf but whatever, i would have pad as under my watch), and we used a couple of bits but i left money for the things we couldn’t really replace cos we didn’t use much (sugar and stuff like that). she even commented in a message that we left the house amazingly clean.
I always get huge anxiety after a sit that we are going to get a negative review, even though I scrub everything from top to bottom - and I replace anything we might have used.
anyway, I digress, I am feeling incredibly disheartened now and the kids are disappointed we haven’t been able to secure anything for easter- I’m not sure what I have been doing wrong - I always write a good chunk of an application individually saying how we might be a good fit for the pet/s - I just copy paste a bit about our experience.
Admittedly I have been going for more dog and cat sits than usual. Cat only sits during the holidays seem to fly like the wind (I rarely see them as I don’t use the app - I find it annoying to use as I like a million tabs open at once!)
and we have no experience with dogs via THS - which I acknowledge in the applications and explain why, and the experience we do have, so I guess this is part of the lower success rate, but still. Can anyone tell me what I might be able to do better to secure a sit? I don’t really understand what has changed, and it’s making us all sad as we need our cat fix! thanks