We joined THS as hosts at beginning of the year and have had excellent experiences with our 3 sits so far (and one pending).
We are now considering becoming sitters too as it seems a really good way of getting to know places we dont know about, and of course we love animals
My question is really to others who have done this. How easy do you find it to coordinate sitters and sitting from both sides. I don’t want to end up in a stressful mess so any tips/ advice on the practicalities?
Hi @JackJack I haven’t done this myself, but I can see it working really well if you were able to approach it more like a home exchange with pets included, perhaps by placing a listing for a sit with flexible dates, and mentioning that you’re ideally looking to do a direct home swap in x, y or z regions. That way, both parties could agree that if anything major goes wrong during the sit, you would all end the exchange early and return home. A direct exchange would limit the knock-on effect that being part of a house-sitting ‘chain’ would have. You may also find that sitters who don’t have pets apply, so it could be a great way to travel without the responsibility of pet care.
The obvious concern in you being committed to caring for someone else’s home and pets, whilst a sitter takes care of yours, is that you could easily find yourselves in a compromised position. What if your own pet falls seriously ill whilst you’re away on a sit? As there are two of you, the worst case scenario would be much more manageable than if you were a solo sitter, but you’d still need to make sure you had a watertight plan in place.
I’ve sat for someone with dual membership. They always have a plan b. If they do get a sitter first and then tries to get their own plans together make sure you will be able to fulfill your travel plans. Don’t cancel a sitter because your plans did not work out. Tried to say this before edited post but just woke up and got words crossed.
They may call you out in the forum for not being thoughtful and considering their travel plans. I would suggest having your travel plans secured with a sit you want to do. Then get a sitter. If your sitter cancels have a plan b. Be prepared to pay for a sitter. Probably the same you do now just being a host. You don’t want to cancel your own sit and put that host in a bad situation.
It depends on your general experience getting sitters. In our case, we have cats and live in NYC so we can always find sitters and even if we couldn’t (almost unimaginable) we could work out exchanges with neighbors for drop ins. Making it clear in our applications that we are “combined” members also helps us to land sits as it makes us appear more trustworthy
Travelling this way does involve some uncertainty sometimes like if there is a last minute cancellation either way, so we upgraded to premium when we combined so there’d be less of an issue if a sit we were going to got cancelled or if there was a truly last minute cancellation for a sitter coming to us.
Doing “both” makes you a combined member. The “duo member” feature is an add on that I don’t believe is mandatory (yet) This involves paying extra for the secondary or accompanying sitter to have US background check or I guess full ID check in other parts of the world. THS has pushed this feature suggesting that homeowners prefer it. Most homeowners aren’t aware of it. So the person who opened the account will be the “prmiary” sitter and you can add another person without paying for the duo feature. Just make sure to mention both people in the profile and have photos of both if you are sitting together. With the “duo” feature you can do sits that have a short overlap, but as it is unlikely you’ll need that, IMO it is not worth paying extra for this feature.
We have a dual premium membership and it has worked great for us. We typically don’t do exchanges with the express intent to double side them but it sometimes works that way.
Note that we live in a desirable city where it’s usually fairly easy to find sitters. We also have back up options in terms of established paid local sitter relationships, as well as friends who could potentially care for our dog if needed. And then as noted, we have premium membership so if an issue does arise, we know we will have that coverage.
the above combination with those considerations has served us well. We always prioritise having coverage for our dog first before doing anything and then go from there in terms of finding sits that work for the travel we have in mind.
It is of course more coordination than just doing a one-sided plan but really amounts to doing what works for you as well as ensuring you’ve factored in the considerations appropriately.
Last thing I’d say of note is I would not take for granted the learning curve that comes from being an HS as well as being an HO. There is a bit of a knack for each role so wouldn’t assume because you’ve done one that automatically makes you great at doing the other. That being said, because we’ve played both roles It has helped immensely in developing empathy for both parties and I think has helped us overall regardless of which hat we happen to be wearing and we are 5 stars for both profiles.
We have a Combined Membership. After 6 sits as Owners, we went to Combined. So far we did one sit In April for 9 nights and we covered our needs with a THS sitter for 12 nights. It worked really well! We definitely needed to adjust the start date and end date for a sitter at our home, thankfully they were super flexible as I didn’t post my dates correctly. That was the tricky part – to get the dates right for the Sitters at OUR home first. We drove to our first housesit as sitters so that gave us a bit of flexibility to leave our own home a bit early and take our time to drive to the Sit we had confirmed. While coordination takes effort and great thought for all sides, it is totally worth it! We have our 2nd sit booked as the sitters next month. We have a Sitter booked for our home coverage already.
I would like to mention a couple of things I’ve learned and links to chats that might help you.
Once we became Combined Members, I thought it would be really hard to get our first gig as Sitters. It was not and i think it has a lot to do with being able to share our Housesit with link in the application note. I also put a lot of thought, time and effort into our Sitter profile with tips from the forum members. We applied for sit with Low Application badge. Advice on Sitter Pics
We did not do the Duo Sitter add on (more $) which means my husband doesn’t have the background check badge, only I have the badge. It has not been an issue so far.
Use the same skills you have used to successfully choose sitters in your home as you start applying for housesits as a sitter. A good match as a Sitter in someone’s home is just a important (for us anyways).
I suggest starting with a shorter sit for the first one or add on questions to avoid discomfort for sleeping arrangements. We did 9 nights and it was great aside from sleep was tough due to my newbie-ness. Had I learned a few things before that, I could have been more comfortable.
Try a cat only sit for the first sit if possible, that worked well for us even though we’ve always had and still have a dog.
We have Premium and I recommend that as you now have two ends of coverage to worry about cancellation.
Thank you all. This does sound like something that would work for us, although we won’t be rushing in to it.
We already have premium membership and would continue that with combined.
We are lucky enough to live in a lovely area and only have a low maintenance cat so we have had no trouble getting sitters but useful to know should do that side first. We also just like to hike when on trips so won’t really mind where we go, though choosing a cat only sit at first is great advice.
@JackJack, love the positive energy. And thoughtful comments by fellow Forum members.
We have across this a few times on our travels. The idea of concurrently acting as pet parent and housesitter inherently increases risk. We applaud wise guidance by @MTBer and @SeniorSitter1 in regards arranging backup plan(s). We suspect that the degree to which you seek to mitigate such risk may depend on the extent of your ambition - do you seek to housesit locally, domestically or internationally?
We have met combo members that consciously choose to pay for a local housesitter to provide pet care at times when they themselves are housesitting. This increases cost but reduces risk.
We have met quite a few pet parents that envy our world of affordable travel. As the saying goes, the grass is always greener … Perhaps they fail to appreciate work and effort in securing and executing housesits, or to respect that there are some outliner cases of misconduct out there. Some of such pet parents enjoy privileged lifestyles and may frankly imagine only the upsides of housesitting (it’s a free holiday, right?! ).
We encourage you to experiment simply at first. To gain comfort. Perhaps secure a local housesit for yourselves. If there’s a big problem - hopefully unlikely - then one of you can return home to provide care for own pet(s).
As a homeowner that is in a desirable area and relatively easy to find sitters, we went with the approach of Find the Sit we wanted 1st! Get that booked, then post our Housesit adjusting the start / end dates appropriately as needed. I think that is easier for us since our home gets a lot of applications. So we were able to find a sit in an area we REALLY wanted to go, then go from there.
I have been a sitter and HO since I joined THS 5 years ago. I am currently on the first of 3 back-to-back sits for a total of 7+ weeks while I have one sitter at my house for the entire time.
I have never had a problem coordinating sitters that match my travel dates. I arrange my travel first, and then post a listing for a sitter at my house. I am not in a hugely popular location, but it is a nice house ina major US city, in a walkable area with a very easy cat, so i always get applications. if I didn’t find a sitter, I would pay someone. Sometimes I don’t bother listing a sit if I am just going for a few days because it isn’t worth the effort, both in finding a sitter and in cleaning my house (I clean like a maniac before a sitter arrives!).
I believe that being a THS host makes me a more attractive sitter, because it shows that I understand both sides. Definitely highlight that element when you apply to be a sitter.
Definitely find the sit first. Get the sit confirmed. Maybe if there is time wait a few days to make sure nothing hinky comes up. Make sure you have the arrival and departure time straight and even for good measure let the homeowner know that changes will be difficult for you because of various travel arrangements you need to make. Then once you’ve coordinated that, figure out when you need a sitter to arrive and leave, and post or invite or do whatever you normally do to find a sitter. If you have cats it’s very simple if you can figure out how to do remote handovers for your sitters!
In our case, I initially thought this would be a “me” thing and when on the first sit by myself so we didn’t need a sitter. But my spouse has come on most of the other sits. In a few cases, he’s had to arrive later or leave earlier because of work commitments but it hasn’t been an issue as these were all sits that could be handled by one person or a couple.
Ooh thanks @MTBer, that’s useful to know. It would also maybe be quite sensible for us the first couple of times as without sitting reviews may be trickier…though as mentioned by previous comment being hosts with good reviews will hopefully help.
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