I keep noticing homeowners listings say “come stay at the beach” only to look at the fine print and see it is a 40 minute drive to a beach nearby and they don’t even tell you if there is public beach access or if that is another 15 minutes away. This should be stopped somehow. It is false advertising. Also they will say “come stay in the famous tourist town of such and such” and then it will say that they live an hour away from the said sought after town. This can be a huge shock and disappointment if you don’t read the fine print. It can even be a long way to just get groceries.
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A very valid concern here.
One way to ensure (well, as much as possible…) that the listing reflects reality is to ask HO’s detailed q’s : How far is your home from '‘X" by car/foot/bike ? X = grocery store, transit stop, touristy highlight, etc. Sure it is an addional step we sitters should have to take but it helps clarify any fudging on the HOs’ part.
Another way to get more precise details is to ask for the home’s town and postal code (some HO’s many not want to give out a specific address at this point in the conversation). This allows you do do some easy additional sleuthing on your own.
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Are these sits that have never been reviewed before? Would be odd if so and the previous sitter didn’t mention it.
I’d think it odd to not read the listing closely. If I saw conflicting info in a listing and thought the host was lying, I’d report it.
I don’t know how they’d get away with it anyway, because wouldn’t you get the address so you could head to a sit?
Personally, I always get the welcome guide, including the address, well ahead of a sit. I look at online maps and check what stuff is nearby before I ever travel there. I don’t sit in places without amenities nearby.
Some sitters, especially new ones, find it hard to cancel after they have confirmed even if there’s new information that should have been disclosed before agreeing to a sit.
That is really the first and most important filter sitters should use and then, of course the video chat and/or communication previous to confirming a sit. I would not agree to a sit if the owners were reluctant to give information about the neighborhood, services and distances.
On the other hand, it’s true that THS doesn’t help in the search process or the listing process. I have an active search for the Isle of Man and I get alerts from Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It seems that when the owners list the location they just type the name of town but there’s no further requirement of region or area. I have seen listings where the location shown in the map have nothing to do with the real location of the sit, they just share the name. I specifically remember a “low application” listing in London and another in the Canary Islands, I couldn’t believe it. I checked and the one in London appeared in the middle of nowhere in Northern England, and the Canary Islands one appeared in the middle of nowhere in northern Spanish peninsula, thousands of kilometers away. I contacted the owners and they went to reviewing mode in a few minutes. This is an example of a joint failure.
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Although I see your point, it is also an advice given here on forum from sitters that hosts highlight what is reachable from home and even advice to alter location of home to try to tell where in the world the home is for non-locals.
Distance is also very relative - while some might call a 30 min drive “commuting” others will drive 2-3 hours just to get groceries or go to a party.
So do read the listing thouroughly, and if something is important and not 100 % clear - ask.
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Seems illogical to not nail down location, but apparently some folks do let it slide. Shake my head.
• I don’t even apply if the host doesn’t include proximity to amenities in their listing, unless I already know the area. I wouldn’t consider a sit without knowing how to get food, for instance. And in major metros, I won’t apply without knowing what neighborhood the home is in. In many cities, some neighborhoods are sketchier than others.
• I want distances. I don’t trust travel time or estimated proximity to amenities unless previous sitters mentioned it. Sit hosts have incentive to estimate low. (I saw a host doing it on a listing that they’d asked folks to offer feedback on. As soon as I saw the estimated drive time to the city center, I knew they were lying, which made me wonder what else they’d lied about. You couldn’t make that time unless you had a helicopter or all traffic had disappeared in an apocalypse.)
• If hosts want to be top-secret about their address till the last minute, they can find another sitter. Especially as a woman who sits solo, I think it would be crazy to not have an address, hosts’ names and contact info to give my husband before a sit.
• Even if it weren’t a safety issue, I’d want the address well ahead of a sit. That’s so I can look online for nearby stuff. If I check and realize that a host lied to me, I’d report them and there’d be zero chance I’d do the sit. I can’t even understand why any host would risk a sitter catching on and canceling.
If I were a host, I’d review my listing and spell out any discrepancies if THS mapping put my home in the wrong location.
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