I applied for a month long sit 10 days ago. 7 days ago HO messaged and said she will know by X date. X date has come and gone, and not one word. The sit is starting in 3 weeks. I’ve applied for other sits, so we’ll see. Even if HO needs my help, not sure I should trust HO or this situation if she ignores messages. Though dates and location would be great if I could trust her. She hasn’t even read my message from 7 days ago! Unbelievable.
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I have had a sit like that. HO was very busy: work, family, upcoming vacation.
The sit was nice anyway.
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If it were me, if she hasn’t confirmed it and it really sounded like you were going to get the sit, I’d send another message saying you need confirmation within the next couple of days so you can arrange things around her.
The extra prompt in her messages may kick her into action, and do it again the following day, and the following, just keep it short and say ‘you dates are coming around fast’ to stress the urgency to her and re-word each message in a very similar way, but still keep it lovely and friendly. You have nothing to lose by doing so. While still applying for other sits to open up your options.
Life may have just got in the way of things, and delayed her organising things, but that doesn’t help you, you can’t rely on her to get organised as she’s already proven that to you.
Were her dates actually set-in-stone, ie flights booked, if they were she could be holding out for a different sitter, if so, I wouldn’t like to be anyone’s back up plan.
With it being a month long and she’s left it to just 3 weeks beforehand or less by the time she gets in touch with you, she’s going to struggle to find someone with a whole month free in their diary, but that’s her problem for not sorting it sooner. Hope things work out for you either way.
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We recently had something similar …
listing had been live for a few weeks , when we were the 4th sitter to apply.
Our application remained unread for several days .
We sent a friendly chase up message a few days later.
The home owner eventually sent a friendly message to thank us for our application and explain that when we applied they had already spoken to one of the first 3 and invited them to sit however those sitters delayed in agreeing to sit ….so in the meantime the sit had remained open to applications …
It would have been helpful to know this information earlier, but actually in this case the delay was being caused by another sitter taking time to make their decision- not as we had assumed the homeowner procrastinating.
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I have something similar going on. Two sits applied for over a week ago, same date range in same area, both in reviewing status, neither application read or responded to. Both listings are apparently new users since they have no previous reviews. Maybe they don’t know how this works.
This also happened to me a few months ago. It had been well over a month since applying and finally I heard from one owner and accepted. The second one responded less than an hour later and I had to decline - I hadn’t had time to withdraw my application. I might have derived a little pleasure in nicely imparting that if you snooze you lose. 
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We are coming up on 5 months since we applied for a sit. No response from the HO. Nothing. Crickets.
The listing is sitting as “Reviewing”, thus at least 5 Sitters are in limbo.
Can’t believe this is the only listing like this.
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I’ve had many where my application got no response (even in the 5 limit era) and in some cases was unread for months until the sit date has passed.
I recently had one where it was read only after a week but no response. Contacted them again to say I was ending a sit the day before theirs would start and was going to book my flight back were they interested. Week went unread. Then a week before their start date they were suddenly active and keen to talk.
Even if I hadn’t already booked my flight I would not have proceeded. Just too flaky to be trusted.
I suggest you ignore them if they contact you. Not worth the highly likely cancellation on their part.
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