That’s only your perspective. Some sitters do choose housesitting as a lifestyle, not just a ‘hobby’ whether they have their own home or not. Ours is rented out as we have chosen (long before we were sitters) to live nomadically and travel. In the first few years we did sit only sporadically but over time slowly became fulltime. So it is definitely more than a hobby for us and also an alternative housing solution. Why should we pay rent or take airbnb rentals (other that the odd overnight) when we can do a lovely housesit- staying in a comfortable home with lovely pets- live like a local, feel useful taking care of home/pets and keeping the costs down!
Inbetween sits, or in cheaper places and/or where sitting is less common we rent something.
As the cost of living rises some sitters are choosing consciously to use housesitting to avoid having to rent, or to take a break from renting. There is no shame in this as long as both host and sitter acknowledge the fair exchange model. Nobody wants to be taken advantage of. Sitters sit for a variety of reasons and hosts take sitters for different reasons too. As long as everyone upholds there side of the deal, and everyone is happy, its all OK!
I see what you mean, and I’m sorry if I expressed myself poorly – that wasn’t my intention at all. Of course, THS is whatever people make of it, and everyone approaches it differently. I only meant that THS itself doesn’t necessarily promote house sitting as a lifestyle choice but rather presents itself as “the world’s most-loved travel solution for pet people.”
We don’t own any property at all, we sold and gave away nearly everything we had when we set off three years ago. And yes, house sitting can absolutely be an option in places where rentals or Airbnbs are too expensive. But to be honest, we’re usually so busy with work and caring for the dogs that even on longer sits, we never truly get the chance to immerse ourselves in the local life. Maybe it’s different when sitting lower-maintenance pets or just looking after houses, but for us, at the moment, it’s purely about our love for dogs.
When we genuinely want to live somewhere like locals, we prefer to rent a place for a longer period, so we can fully integrate into the community and take part in activities over several weeks or months.
The key thing is whether a sitter (or host) has the resources to have a backup plan, rather than choose sitting out of desperation. That type of scenario makes them especially vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, etc. Not that that makes it OK for them to be taken advantage of, but that there are creeps in the world — including in hosting and sitting.
Also, reviewing accurately and reporting to THS can help limit abuses and help protect others from walking into bad circumstances. But it seems that a number of people struggle with that, which enables bad hosts and sitters.
We’ve heard of terrible sitters as well, of course, who should not be entrusted with anyone’s pets or homes, unfortunately. For example, I sat for a pair of great hosts who’d been taken advantage of during their first hosting situation with THS — the sitter cleared out their pantry and used their car without permission, even after getting a $200 USD ride share gift card from them. (Luckily, their external camera recorded her taking their car, so they were able to get her booted off THS.)
For those who think I am only into luxury homes, I am doing a short sit in Detroit. Let’s say, trasitional neighborhood, but I am sitting a pit. Sweet dog. But location works as I am meeting a friend for lunch tomorrow, need a tune up and found a great place nearby for Monday and leaving Tues. The house is interesting as it was a fixer upper, old house. Not keeping heat well but I have layers. And I complained about clutter with the toddler, this has some clutter, but it is more os the aesthetic type. Like you walked into a shop to get your tarot read. So it doesn’t bother me. I wouldn’t give it a bad review for that. It is clean and spacious. I think the toddler clutter all over the kitchen, so there wasn’t any counter space made me angry. And the fact they left a garbage basket and cleaner on the end table and I think they thought I left it there. I don’t touch their stuff unless necessary. So where I gave a less than stellar review in FL, this one is OK for me. Neighborhood is not what I would call walkable. But the place is OK. Not luxurious, not in a great neighborhood. But works for me. Not my best. But it works.
I left a 2 star review once for the overall experience, which was definitely negative. This was under the old system. It was an awful experience and drama and draining on my mental health even after I got out of the bad sit.
Since the new system has been introduced, I only gave either 5 stars or nothing. I did give 4 stars for hospitality twice when the hosts weren’t especially welcoming (but nothing too atrocious) and 4 stars for pet behaviour once when the dog was a bit tricky in places (but again, nothing too bad).
After a bad experience, I would rather not give a review, unless it is a seriously dangerous or harmful issue that I feel like I need to warn future sitters about.
As HO, a four star in any category would make me sad and hopefully I’d get enough feedback that I could look at what could be improved. I’d also respond as such to their review. Knowing that some sitters see no review as a solid negative I’d rather have an honest, open review with the opportunity to respond.
@Shafofo its sometimes hard to give a bad review, especially when its a widely held opinion on THS that anything less than 5* across the board is somehow bad. I e making the star system rather meaningless- after all no one can be perfect in every way all the time! Before the blind review era it was also very common to give no review rather than a negative one for fear of retaliation. There was also the imbalance in the review system with no categories to rate hosts. E.g in the old days if the house was not clean enough we sometimes left no review rather than mention that -especially if the hosts were nice. But recently we had such a sit where I felt able to make nice comments about the hosts and pets and just drop a star on cleaning rather than mention it. That’s been our approach personally.
In the early days, after one truly horrible sit where we had to get THS to mediate, we agreed no reviews either way. We did not want our reputation ruined when we were still quite new. In retrospect I regret not giving the bad & truthful review they deserved as several subsequent sitters also left no reviews (for this long sit) so I can only surmise they had an equally horrible time but no one felt able to warn future sitters.
Now with blind reviews its a little easier to be truly honest but old conditionings die hard!
We gave a very justified 3* review to one HO recently(The first ever less than 5* review) with full explanation and they wrote a strong retaliatory response. Fortunately that response appears on their profile and not ours. It was still challenging to do it but I couldn’t let them get away with that behaviour. They gave us our very first 4* review but these days in the context of over 100 5* reviews it immediately sticks out as an anomaly so has no impact on us.
But for newer sitters or hosts dropping stars can be more significant. Sometimes I think it would be better to have no stars at all and just rely on a written script
Just curious on this @huronbase.
I know that you have deducted 1 or 2 stars from the individual review categories in the past but have always given an overall 5 star review. Do you mean that you intend to remove star(s) from the overall review rating for your current sit? This one must be pretty bad.
But the issue is that the main living area is not bad, not super dirty or anything. Bathtub, bad. But old. Towel smelled, though seemed clean. When I went downstairs to wash clothes, dirty clothes and linens all over the stairs, floor, on cement unfinished basement, why the towel probably smelled. One sheet left on paper towels. No supply, no TP except 1 roll in each bathroom. That is not nice. Very dirty kitchen towel. Coffee press left with old grounds. I feel hospitality is lacky. Dog is very sweet. Rescued pit and just so appreciative of attention and walks. I don’t want to wreck chances that the dog gets sitters, but I have showered and I feel like my hair smells like that towel.
I gave a 3* overall review of a sit which I had to leave on the second day of 11 booked because of irritated sinuses and throat due to cigarette smoke. I have a very clear note at the top of my profile page asking not to be invited if there are smokers in the house as I am allergic to cigarette smoke. I did give 5* in each of the categories apart from communication which I marked down to 4*. I got 1* overall with 1* in each category apart from 2* for organisation!! Certainly hasn’t done me any harm as I gave a very factual reply.
What? Are you trying to tell me it’s disrespectful that we raised the flag (as we were even told to!) completely alone with three dogs present and sang “God Save the King”? I’m pretty sure the dogs didn’t feel that way.
