Hello fellow sitters, happy new year!
I have done 30+ sits, some better than others, but things always worked smoothly. Now I have just come out of a stressful sit where I left, for several reasons. That was the first time I have done that.
I am still recovering from it, it was a very negative period.
Now I am in a nice house, nice environment and nice cats, but I am the first sitter ever for this HO. She left 6 days ago and she is apping me every day with long apps, about the house, the cats but also about food, Instagram and more âoff topicâ things. I felt she was maybe insecure. She gave me her Instagram and although I think I shouldnât, I gave her mine so that she could get a better understanding of who I am which would maybe give her some assurance and she would stop apping me.
But so far no result.
Sheâs a nice lady and I want this sit to go well, but I wish she would go enjoy her journey and let me live my life too.
In my personal life i would simply not react, or very late, but I fear this would only make her more anxious and want more contact.
Any advice on how to resolve this one? Thanks.
Iâm not sure what you mean.
I adress communication pre-sit. As a sitter, I would send an update daily, usually late afternoon/ early evening - often with a pet photo - and a line or two of the days events or «everything is fine, wish you a nice evening». I tell them before sit that this is something I often do, or would they like to only be contacted if there is an issue. I never offer or invite to more frequent than daily, that would be a burden (unless pet need for it).
Do you do something similar, or only message her if she text you first? Is her texts requiring answers?
You can take charge and simply say «Iâll send you a message in the afternoon daily. Just let you know in advance, so you are not concerned if I donât answer. I will ofc be in touch if there is an issue. Have a nice holiday!»
She may be lonely rather than insecure. She must not travel much if youâre her first sitter so do her future sitters a favour and set a gentle boundary by doing what Garfield advises. Thank her for the extra information about the cats and the house, assure her that everything is going well and that youâll send photos and updates every evening. Then just reply to other messages with a thumbs up.
I am usually the one that texts more than required and always immediataly after the first night, which I did here too. And then on a regular basis, so that HO is assured.
She travels every year for 3 months, but her first time with a housesitter from outside. Lonely, not likely, she is surrounded by family. Personally I find a daily update a lot, this is a long term sit, but I will ask her what she would like. I havenât in this case, all has been pretty chaotic on her side.
Yes a daily update is a lot. I always ask the owners at the start of a sit if they want updates/photos & how often. Iâve never had an owner want them daily. So, yes, ask the owner
I wouldnât leave it up to the host to make a suggestion if you are already unhappy with the frequency of communication. I would rather make a suggestion (that would work for me) and ask for her thoughts. If I am already unhappy - what if she suggests something Iâm still unhappy with? Saying «that wonât work for me, either?»
I donât know what would be good⊠maybe
I hope youâre enjoying your trip! Everything is going well here with the cats/ferrets/tortoises and the house.
To help you relax and enjoy your journey, how about I send you updates every other day? Iâll still let you know right away if anything urgent comes up.
Interesting. Weâve done nearly 30 sits and MANY HOâs have wanted daily messages, photos or video!
As a H.O. donât expect daily updates, but I think most would enjoy/appreciate a daily pic and a one liner of our pet enjoying herself or time with the sitter. Itâs a nice thing that goes along way to make you relax. I think for a longer sit? That could become unnecessary as itâs clear all are happy.
One of our sitters would occasionally share snaps of places in our city she had enjoyed which made me feel happy to see. Definitely not necessary but I felt like we had a connection that way.
Iâm on my 20th sit and all but two of my hosts have asked for daily updates. Iâm happy to do them â itâs easy and quick to offer peace of mind. I usually sit for a week or two.
Such updates â seeing their skittish indoor / outdoor cats take to me quickly in photos or video and knowing allâs been well â helped my current hosts decide to offer to pay for my airfare if Iâd do a repeat sit soon. And these are first-time hosts on THS.
I address this in my application. I let the pet parents know that I will send updates in the evenings after dinner. âI want you to enjoy your vacation and not worry about checking your phone all day for my messages. I will send all of my updates in the evenings after dinner between 7pm-9pm unless itâs an emergency. Frankly, Iâm busy as well during the day working, taking care of my kids and your petsâ I give the option of daily updates, every other day or twice a week. Then I always send my updates between 7-9pm even if I wrote everything ahead of time. This has worked beautifully and yes, some pet parents are really anxious and some are not. But if you get them into a habit of checking their phones at a certain time, they also know to message back their questions at that time as well.
First, is she reaching you on more than one app? If so, the first thing you need to do is to tell her that in order to keep yourself organized and efficient, you would like her to reach out on one app â whatever you agreed to â text, whatsapp, etc. Let her know that youâre busy so this way youâll know itâs important and see it and respond. If she still sends you stuff on other apps ignore it.
Second, try to send her an update with photos that is very reassurring â and includes mundane stuff like how they are eating, and so and so let me brush him. Just facts. So she knows everyone is all right every day. Try to do that early in the day where she is staying, so she gets the good news at the start of her day and can go back to the photos.
Third, keep your responses short and to the point and aso reassuring. Use emojis or very short responses that show you understood but not a lot of time to engage in a conversation.
Fourth, recognize that you can still live your life. We canât always control exactly how other people behave. We can to some extent control our reactions. There is the time it takes you to read and respond to her messages versus the time you are spending thinking about this. Every time this pops into your head, play a song you love, pet a cat, take a walk, whatever works.
Any paid sitter â Rover, agency, Meowtel, whatever would expect sitters to send daily updates. WIth cat drop-ins, the sitter checks in and sends a message with each drop in through some apps. So one message sent each day is not a big deal. I only go away for short trips â under two weeks. And also do short sits â under two weeks. As a host, I emphasize to sitters that I want daily updates. As a sitter my default is daiy updates even if they arenât asked for. Iâve yet to have a homeowner tell me that Iâm bothering them because theyâre on vacation!
Yes that sounds like a plan. I will suggest that. Thanks 
If she still will send a lot of messages, one could say you are often busy with pets and tasks other times and you will adress questions in the scheduled updates.
Thatâs interesting , many of our 25 sits have requested daily updates .
For the longer sits (6-8 weeks ) itâs been 2-3 times a week .
We did have one host who said that they wanted a digital detox whilst away so please NO updates or photos as they know what their dog looks like ⊠(but added not to hesitate to contact them if there was a problem )
Like you, we always ask the host what they want ( and we wouldnât agree to a sit where an host wanted updates more than once a day ) .
One anxious host asked for daily videos of their cats - However the cats mostly slept and ran off whenever I got the phone out to take a video of them playing . I sent daily photos but explained why there were no videos . The host could see from the photos that the cats were enjoying the garden or snoozing in their favourite sunny spots indoors and was reassured enough to leave a good review and invite us back to sit again.
@Silversitters we also had a host who said she didnât need updates because she knew what her pets looked like! To be fair it was only a weekend sit.
I have often been on longer or long sits. This is a 3 month sit and I have met the lady over lunch with her children before coming. She also has motion sensors in several rooms⊠Well, letâs try some of the tricks mentioned above 
were they long sits (months)?
Thatâs not unusual in homes with security alarms which are usually installed because they are required by the ownerâs home insurance provider .
Several sits have had these - they are not cameras - friends of ours have them in their homes . They are commonly installed in certain neighbourhoods