Against my better judgment, I accepted a sitter who hadn’t been able to find a time to connect with me over the phone. She said she worked. Well, turns out she doesn’t have time for my sit now either! Trusted Housesitters responded pretty quickly to help me relist my sit, but I worried. It’s over the holidays, and coming up fast. I’m looking for advice on what to do or if anyone wants to sit - Charleston, WV. Let me know! Thank you all
Post Moderated - dates removed in-line with guidelines - thank you for understanding
Hi @Casey_42. Welcome to our community. I’m sorry to hear you’re in a pickle trying to find a sitter for the holidays. Hopefully our forum members can help you find someone.
Please copy a link to your listing into your forum profile. That way our members can take a look at it for you. Here’s how you do that:
Hi @Casey_42 I’ve added the listing link to you forum profile that way other members will be able to review and offer feedback too … I’m sorry to hear that you are having problems hopefully our great forum community will be able to help …
Hi @Casey_42. I’ll start with some nitty-gritty, then jump back to a higher level.
From the app, we can see that you had just one previous sitter, Sept 9–Oct 9, 2022. That’s fine, but you didn’t give her a review, nor did she give you one. And they seem experienced (13 5-star reviews).
For some sitters (who use the app), this is a potential flag. Please give your sitter an honest review. That sitter has given feedback on other HOs, so they should also give you honest feedback.
Your listing has a lot of walls of text. Some people worry about listings being too long, but I don’t think that’s an issue. I like how you bring your cats’ personalities to life. But it should be more readable. Sadly, we have more formatting options here in the forum than in actual listings. But if you read others’ listings/profiles, you’ll see people just use more whitespace/newlines, or dashes (-), bullets (•), headers (Feeding:), etc.
If you start getting lots of “favorites” but not applicants, that’s a good sign. It means people like your sit but just not the dates, and Christmas is the busiest. If not many favorites, then your listing may need some sprucing up.
Your sit isn’t family friendly? Are you really sure that no possible family would be able to do your sit? What if it were the Gilmore Girls? Consider adding that tag.
If a sitter can borrow your car, that’s a huge perk. Consider how that might be possible.
Regardless, as a sitter I always like to know where the HO’s home is, as close as they are willing to say. Think of it like Airbnb. I like to plan ahead before I apply: Can I walk there? Uber? Bus? Train? Provide a google map link to as close as you are comfortable (e.g., nearest cross streets); it’s easy and a priceless tool for potential sitters.
When your sit is 7 days away, you can list it in the forum category “last-minute sits.” That’s Sun/Mon? So let’s get your listing as good as possible before then!
Ok, thinking more high-level:
Charleston, West Virginia. Not South Carolina. Looks like it’s 2–3 hours from the nearest big city. Hmm. Advice, anyone?
You can always invite local sitters, working your way out geographically. But you may want to get your listing ship-shape first.
Think about your ideal sitter. Maybe they are drawn to rescue cats. Pirate is unique: a one-eyed rescue cat, with matching name. Your last pic is the two cats on a couch, portrait oriented. If that were a very high-res photo, you could zoom in and get a landscape shot of their two faces, then make that your first photo in the listing. Or just take such a photo right now.
And maybe get their names into the headline. Like, “Save Pirate and Charlie, friendly rescue cats!”
View your listing from a sitter’s perspective, esp. the thumbnail and (truncated) headline via the website.
Charleston, West Virginia. Not South Carolina. Looks like it’s 2–3 hours from the nearest big city. Hmm. Advice, anyone?