I’m on my Mac laptop at the moment. This is really, really weird. Because I knew I’d seen these exact locations under photos, but only today did I actually try to find them using the search tool. Nothing. I think we can BOTH agree that this benefits no one. 
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Just asked my personal tech support (spouse who does this stuff for a living). His theory is that they probably had a more accurate system at some point in the past but changed it – possibly to “solve” a problem – likely security concerns of homeowners. So this is grandfathered in.
Off topic. We use Warmshowers too. fabulous organization. Their map, is NOT perfect but is much better than sorting listings.
@Marion An example that I saw was in California near San Francisco (which is often used as clickbait). The HO (who is also a Sitter) honestly mapped her home in East Richmond, CA, which is a tiny area close to San Francisco, close to Oakland and Berkeley, and obviously the east side of Richmond.
I was completely shocked that the HO had the option of mapping her home to East Richmond, CA. I applaud the HO who did this!
Please, everyone, be honest.
Again, it is admirable, as other homeowners in that location, might not make that choice. But in this case the homeowner has the option of making the choice because East Richmond, CA comes up on the dropdown. You can as a HO put E. Richmond down on your listing. You can as a sitter, search for homes in that area. If you are searching using that, you are going to get all the active listings in the San Fransciso bay area, not just East Richmond. That’s fine. That’s how Airbnb works. It gives people looking a fairly wide area. A site can also offer filters if people want to narrow it down. Wouldn’t that be great to have here as an option?
What I’m trying to point out is that in addition to people straight out being misleading, saying San Fransisco when they are actually in Mill Valley for example, you also have HOs legitimately trying to pick the “nearest town, city, village” that the mapping system will accept, which in large cities might just be the name of the city rather than the neighborhood. All of this is less about “bad behavior” or “admirable behavior” on the part of the HO, and more about bad programming. If you take away the “village, city, town” and map based on the last line in the actual address (city, state zip code in the US for example) then you’ve elminated human behavior and the mapping as well as the line under the listing would be accurate. A homeowner who lived in East Richmond, would not have the option of lying about it. A homeowner who lived out by the zoo would still say San Fransciso, CA but on a map it would be clear they were not by Chinatown for instance.
What I think the conclusion that most people would agree with, and the best practice for most sites like this one, would be to take human behavior out of the equation and provide objective, accurate information. If as theorized, it used to be that way and they changed things because of security concerns, which could have been based on some unfortunate incident, or a lawyer saying you can’t show the HOs location, etc, then they made the change with a sledgehammer. There are all kinds of ways to show the HO’s area without revealing an exact address. It is not rocket science.
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even though we keep talking about this for a while, just saw an owner saying “Downtown” in the title of the sitting but in the description she says is “close to downtown”… that’s so sad people lying to get more applications
Late to this discussion, but forgive me as I’m new to THS.
I agree with all the above - and would add that I find it frustrating that a listing can appear under several locations (for example York, Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, City of York - Yorkshire is big, and when I’m looking for a sit in York or City of York itself I don’t want to see sits that are 2 hours away).
Not only would a fix to the location be helpful so it is more accurate, but it would be great to have an option to hide listings (filtering won’t do that at the moment).
Also, someone mentioned that the Welcome Guide has the address - my current sit only had Post Code which covers 198 homes.
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how about we have a report button to report sittings from their wrong location? I had already to contact a Live Agent several times just to report a sitting with wrong rules ( like living with the owners during a x months sitting or camera insides the houses ). Now I already saw many places wrongly placed, like a NYC sitting that just appeard but is actually far from brooklyn
looks like we have to make the work from the platform even thought we petsittings keep getting new rules after new rules and the homeowners doesn’t have any changes
I also think that homeowners should indicate what area of a city they live. I live just outside of Vancouver, B.C. and have seen sits in Vancouver where I have no idea what area of the city they are in. I’ve also seen listings that indicate a place in British Columbia that is an area of the city, but not a city. Example - “Kitsilano, B.C.”. Kitsilano is an area of Vancouver, it is not a city in British Columbia.
I’'m a sitter, not an HO. Nonetheless, I live in the 3rd largest city in my country, which also acts as the political capital ( = national government), has many expats, international organisations, all the embassies, etc.
Now the interesting part: the THS list of locations doesn’t know my city. I’ve already reported this a few times, but for time being I actually have to choose a nearby much smaller municipality.
I checked a while ago, and many sits in my city are -obviously- mislabelled.
For example, while the city itself does not exist in the THS list of locations, one of its popular neighbourhoods does… So what have many HOs done as a workaround? List their sit as being in that area. E.g. what else are they do? So even that can happen as a cause of mislabelling a sit’s location.
Oh, and I should add: some sits in my city are correctly labelled. Why? Apparently at some point in the past my city DID exist in THS’ list of locations.
Funny fact: apparently in South Africa there is a hamlet with the same name as my city. It IS possible to choose that hamlet in SA as one’s location. Although (if choosing this as a workaround) that would give you the correct city name, it puts my location about 13000 km off from where it’s supposed to be.
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Just found this sit today…in London.
The HO has stated “Big balcony with view of the city of London.” Must be a great balcony to see 320km or a short train ride of 9hrs.23m. This is where the map should be fixed.
Edited to remove listing link as per posting terms
I guess they live in a different Newham, Newham Londen.
I have seen examples of that in Sweden too. It is the THS system that puts a pin on the map, and then the HO does not really look at that. On occasion, I have used an application to point that out to them.
Yes, I have just pointed that out to the HO in an application
@Keith1 Good spot !
This has probably worked in your favour as London sits are so popular and this has likely been missed by lots of sitters as it won’t show up in a search for London .
Some HO definitely don’t check their listing before publishing.
Saw a listing yesterday for Whitby (Yorkshire) but all the location wording related to Guildford (Surrey). Very confusing, especially if you are not familiar with the areas mentioned.
Maybe a way of putting (if it’s in the Uk) the postcode would help. Or using what three words.
We booked a hotel in 2020, before covid, and when we arrived to the town by night bus, couldn’t find it. It seems it was about 30 miles away. They’d used a pin drop in the town we wanted to stay but were nowhere near. It was in the back & beyond. No shops, restaurants….nothing. And I’d pre paid! The beach was amazing though!
It looks amazing though but yes, it’s in London.
Yes @Keith1 - it has picked up Newham Northumberland and not Newham London. It does look like a lovely sit 
Location map has been changed
