I feel disillusioned already & regret accepting a pet sit.
I confidently accepted a pet sit within 24 hours of applying & having a phone call with the HO. Communication had gone well.
HO confirmed that they had prepared a HO Guide. So, I requested the Guide to be shared via the THS website.
No response from the HO. So I messaged them to ask for confirmation of the post code area for where they lived. Still no response.
The HO had been very proactive in securing me as their pet sitter & now appears to have lost interest in responding to my requests. I feel ignored & that my need for further information has been treated as unimportant.
I think that THS should allow Pet Sitters the right to cancel a Sit if the HO Guide is not shared, say within 7 days of the request.
Is your communication only through the THS messaging system?
After a sit is accepted and confirmed, the host normally shares the Welcome Guide quickly, especially since they already told you that it was done.
Sometimes owners/hosts want to review and update their Welcome Guide before they share it. Perhaps they need a bit more time to do that.
It is odd that they are not responding to you. If you have their phone number and/or email address, I would reach out via those modes now. You could even call them.
Yes I have the HO’s phone number. The sit is in 4 weeks time. We agreed to be back in touch 2 weeks before the start.
I just feel miffed that despite my requests via the website which I know the HO has read they are not responding & probably won’t do so now until 2 weeks before..
I have become frustrated at times at lack of iformation after a confirmed sit. I do bl;ieve that once a sit is confirmed the the sitter should automatically be sent the address and phone number of the home owner. This should be in addition to any later Welcome Guide or alternatives. I know how you feel, as do like to know exactly where I am going. Some sits are quite a way from stated town/village and on un named or even unmade roads so clear directions also needed.
If you agreed contact in two weeks it maybe that they knew they would be busy with work or another trip or something else important
Are these new to THS ? The THS welcome guide is cumbersome to complete, maybe message again that you are happy with the WG in any format and it doesn’t have to be the official THS one . Give them your e-mail address so that they can send the WG in another format .
THS don’t share this information automatically as it would breach privacy laws in EU and U.K. ( GDPR).
I don’t think that most hosts ( especially new ones ) realise this, they assume that THS gives a sitter the information, since they have added it when completing their listing .
@Jenny
A suggestion to inform hosts about this is that a message could pop up with a prompt as soon as a sit is confirmed- “Now share your address & Welcome Guide with your sitter”
A hint for the future - please ask during your initial contact for the address or at least the postcode. I never confirm before receiving that. It is important to see exactly where you will be in relation to shops/cafes/ bus or train stations and the general neighbourhood.
I have asked HOs on 2 occasions for them to cancel our sitting due to them not supplying their WG or word document in a timely manner.
I recommend that you give them maybe 72 hours notice to send it to you or you will ask them to cancel.
The HO may well be put out by your messaging them when you’ve agreed to get in touch two weeks before the sit, which isn’t long. Can’t you wait until then?
I’ve had no trouble getting addresses or welcome guides. I set expectations during the video chat that I’ll be needing those well ahead of the sit, if the host hasn’t already mentioned or volunteered them. I wouldn’t book travel without a welcome guide or address.
Interesting. It is difficult to know if the owners are just super busy, ultra-controlling, or dodgy.
Hopefully everything is on the up and up, but you never know. They might be purposely deceptive.
Mostly I trust people and believe that most people want to “do the right thing,” but you never know when someone is setting a trap for you. Sitters have definitely felt trapped in situations when they could have avoided them if they had noticed the red flags.
This is a red flag, for sure.
I would send a text, “I know that we agreed to be in touch 2 weeks before the sit, but I would really like to review the HO Guide sooner than that. Can you please share it now? Here is my email address, XXXXX, if you need it. I am planning my travel and my time in your area.”
If they don’t respond in an appropriate way, then you can tell them that you need to cancel.
You do have that right. let the HO know you won’t be doing the sit and have them cancel it. Tell them their non responsiveness is disturbing, which it is.
I always request the welcome guide immediately after accepting the sit. If they are still completing it or updating it, that’s fine, but I expect it within a week and I would ask that they go ahead and send me the address. THS puts sitters in a bad position such that we have to commit without full information. I want the welcome guide and address right away so if there are any surprises or dealbreakers they can be discussed with the HO at that time and/or the sit can be cancelled if needed. Better for that to happen right away rather than close to the sit start date. I won’t make any travel plans until I have an address. So, if a HO delays sending the address, it may be too late for me to make plans. Fortunately, I’ve never had a HO refuse to send the address.
We always ask for the address immediately- preferably before the call/video call- if its an area or country we are unfamiliar with. so we can check their location and surroundings. We don’t rely on the Welcome Guide for that as we sometimes receive it and find it has only the post Code listed!
In your case I would insist on them sending the full postal address now even if, for whatever reason, they cannot send the WG immediately. You have every right to know exactly where you are going to be staying the minute you confirm a sit!
As long as we have the address I don’t mind receiving the WG nearer the time. This has never been a problem- so far. But it IS preferable to receive it asap and I do know many sitters will not proceed without in.
I know many sitters on the forum won’t proceed without the WG being sent immediately, but I haven’t encountered that in any of my sits/sitters (I send the WG closer to the sit, mostly because I update it every sit). I do, however send my address after confirmation. would not give a sitter my exact address prior to confirmation. My profile has very specific information about my neighborhood so any potential sitter would be able to research the area - I understand that isn’t necessarily possible with non-urban sits.
The owners TOLD the sitter that they have a Welcome Guide. This cannot be disputed.
If they don’t want the sitter to have the Welcome Guide at this point, they should explain WHY. That is absolutely ridiculous.
If owner does not want sitter to have passcodes, etc, then have 2 versions—the one you send out immediately after the sit is confirmed, and the complete one that you send out a few days before the sit. This is not rocket science.
Owners who don’t care about this, or are too disorganized to do this, are NOT good partners. RED FLAG.
There is also the possibility that they have something to hide about their pets, their home, their expectations. You never know.
Until I learned that booked sitters were notified of any changes I make to the WG after it has already been shared with them, I refrained from sharing our WG until the month before the sit for the exact same reason as @belluca. It never occurred to us that wanting a sitter to receive an accurate WG might be considered ridiculous. We’ve only learned the well kept secret that WG updates trigger a notice to sitters through extensive reading of this forum. But we’ve also read here that those notices may be turned off by a sitter’s comm settings. Which brings us back to our and @belluca’s reason for waiting.
Out of all our sitters, only one has ever requested our WG soon after confirming a sit. We did send it but were concerned because the sit would not start until 6+ months later.
If you make changes to the welcome guide you can always reach out to the sitter and inform them you made some updates. No need to rely on a THS notification.