Since my listing is in Los Angeles, all the Pet Sitter’s that show up when I look for one are already in Los Angeles and they talk about wanting to work in far away places. How do I find people who want to be in Los Angeles for a five day stay?
Why don’t you link your profile and members can give feedback on how to make your listing more attractive?
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@animuldoc
Welcome!
As a pet sitter, I believe that HO inviting people is a real shot in the dark. The likelihood of someone looking at the time you need them is very low. That said, local sitters might work out but as you found, many are looking to go elsewhere.
We were looking for sits in the LA area for next year at a specific time but THS has no way to match up with people who are going to be or want to be in your area.
As others have mentioned, link your profile so we can give you feedback if you’re having trouble getting applications.
For us personally, a 5 day sit would be too short unless it was filling time between other sits. For others, it might work great
Good luck!
Dan
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@animuldoc , if you follow these directions you’ll be able to link your listing to your forum profile:
How to add your listing or profile to your forum profile
Then forum readers can give you suggestions to make it stand out. You may even find a sitter you like from Southern California.
As @Danandnan say, someone traveling from elsewhere may be looking for a sit that is longer than five days.
In theory, sitters listing their location should be helpful for homeowners interested in making direct contact with potentially good matches, but in reality, it often isn’t very helpful, especially in the US where there are so many sitters.
Like you have seen, the location people note is often where they are from originally and not an indication of where they are looking to go. Most people are house sitting to travel elsewhere. Some people change their location to where they are currently, but won’t be staying there once their current sits are done.
But there are people who do sit locally, but with the number of sitters listed in an area like LA, finding someone through private invitation would probably be an exercise in frustration.
Then there are people who change their location to where they would like to sit in hopes of showing up on the radar of HOs searching in that area for the dates they would like to be there. My husband and I ,for example, are full time sitters from NJ and we go back there for at least a few months at a time. So we change our location to my sister’s town. So these types of people are probably there too, but again, in an area with such a huge number of sitters, finding one through private invitation is a tough go of it.
A suggestion I have made here before is to add a feature that is on another house sitting site. There is an option for HOs to search for local sitters within a certain radius, and the only results that come back are sitters who have provided their location (not visible on the profile) and expressed interest in being contacted for local sits. I think this would be a really helpful feature for THS in particular given the size of the membership.
The best way to get a sitter typically is to write a listing and post it, because people self-select for the destination, timeframe, pets, etc. Make sure you include robust info (like what kind of feeding and walking times, how long your pet can be left alone, where they sleep, photos of where the sitter would sleep, bathroom and kitchen photos and such). That’s because sitters are trying to gauge how good a fit your sit would be for them and you want them to be a good match for your priorities, too.
Where some hosts run into problems, for example:
• Vague listings so strangers can’t tell how far away they’ll be from amenities, especially how to get food. Like saying something is “nearby” is pretty much useless. Most HOs have cars. Many sitters won’t. So you want to say for instance if there’s a bus and roughly how long it takes to get to a supermarket or such.
• So many walks or feeding times that the sitter can’t reasonably get away and enjoy the sit. Like some will say their pets need feeding four times a day, plus various walks. Since most of us are awake only so many hours in a day, four feeding times and walks, plus commuting distance and time, might mean you’re asking the sitter to come and do pretty much nothing but stay at your place. Some sitters might go for that, but relatively few. And those few probably won’t match your location, timing, etc.
Personally, I telecommute from all of my sits, which means I spend most of my time with the pets. But even then, when I see listings that say a pet can be left for only two hours at a time, I avoid those sits. Because I don’t want to be stressed by leaving, getting caught in traffic (LA traffic!) and worrying about going anywhere. If sitters just wanted to stay home with a pet and not see anything, they probably could be charging money for such sits on another platform. THS sits are supposed to offer value to the sitter and the host. And most of us don’t need just shelter, LOL.
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Looking through random profiles and contacting sitters won’t work. If you create a public listing, you’ll find people who are looking for sits in your city during that date range. You’ll get plenty of applicants from all over. There’s a five application limit, so if you aren’t satisfied with anyone in the first five, you’ll need to decline some of them and “unpause” the process to get more applicants. You don’t have to choose someone just because they apply. You can look for the best person you can find.