How often should I hear from sitter?

Owner Questions, Advice & Chat
1

We started a house sit, which had some initial issues the first day that made us a little unsettled. We aren’t getting communication from the sitter, this is the first day of the sit. They haven’t responded to texts or answered calls. They were delayed in getting here so we had to have someone help us out with handing over the keys and showing them around. We could only confirm they even arrived by calling the person that did the handover.

This will be almost a 2 month house sit, and we are a bit nervous. We’d like to know what we should expect from the sitter for communication - like how often should we get updates and/or how often should we check in with them? It’s just the first day, so hopefully things smooth out and go well.

We don’t want to seem pushy or bothersome, so it would help to know what is normal. We had a house sit a few years ago for a couple of weeks that went well, so we haven’t really wondered about it.

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2

There isn’t a one size fits all @blkjackslc On a long sit of two months then every other day would be pretty normal (based on 49 sits). Best way to handle it is to message the sitter soon and say “Hope you’ve settled in and pets & you guys are happy. Please what’s app us every other day/2 days with a quick update so we can relax on our travels and do reach out with any questions. Enjoy your time.” Or similar. That should set a nice balance. #allinthecomms

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3

The best thing would have been if you had mentioned your requirements in the listing. But them not saying anything since their arrival is really weird. Especially because they were late.

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4

It tends to vary by sit, and you get a feel as a sitter just how much communication is required. For us, this is clear by pre-sit communication but never stated by actual ‘orders’.
However, your sitters not replying is not good and something we would never do.

Contact them with kid gloves and strike up a nice rapport with them and I’m sure you will get the communication you require.

Hope you get sorted quickly.

5

How stressful for you. For the future it’s a good idea to establish this in advance of the sit - I always ask HO how often they’d like to see photos/little videos, and even if they say ‘you don’t have to’ (often to be nice I think and not wanting to make me feel they don’t trust me) I usually send daily for a shorter sit and every few days for a longer sit, unless they specifically say they don’t want that (which has never happened). I want HO to have a relaxing holiday not to be worrying about how we’re all getting on.

You’re not being unreasonable to set those expectations now, in a friendly way, especially as the sit got off to a rocky start. You could even schedule a quick video call to have a chat as I sometimes find this is more ‘human’ than text messages.

Good luck

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6

@blkjackslc this is very unusual and even when a HO says “we don’t want updates unless something is wrong “ we always say that we will send a message to let them know that we have arrived .

Had you discussed with your sitter how you would keep in contact during the sit ?
Have you checked if there are any messages via the THS inbox rather than WhatsApp or vice versa ?

Are the sitters from overseas would they have a local sim ? - do they have access to your home wi-fi back home so they can message you ? Usually all this is discussed before a sit begins .

So maybe these new sitters ?

If you don’t hear from them within 24 hours of arrival you could contact THS to ask them to contact the sitters on your behalf and ask them to get in touch with you . THS have e-mail address for the sitter and sometimes alternate contact numbers .

You can contact THS 24/7 via the urgent support phone line number on your dashboard.

I hope you hear from them soon and come to an understanding with them about how often you would like to receive updates . Please keep the forum updated .

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7

Are they maybe simply asleep after a challenging journey?

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8

It varies I generally send video updates once a day (I don’t do long sits that are 1+ months long). I ask the pet parents how often they would like updates during the initial video chats and have received different responses. On my sit in Switzerland the pet parent specifically requested to only receive updates after 5pm in the time zone they traveled to because she was there for work and didn’t want her phone pinging during work meetings.

9

I don’t put it in my listing, but I do put it in my Welcome Guide and let them know how often I’d like to hear from them and in what mode, which will depend on our locations. It’s also something I will discuss in our video chat before acceptance.

10

We are on day 2 now and they have opened and read the Whatsapp messages but is not responding.

They has multiple 5 star reviews, so we are surprised at how things have started off.

What should we do?

11

If they have travelled a long distance, maybe their phone simply needed charging, and maybe they are catching up on their sleep.

You seem to be panicing a little early, it’s only the first day, and in general we would only message an HO on the same day of arrival (or same day the HO left) if we were letting ourselves into a property, whereas you had a friend greet them, so they may have naturally presumed you would be in touch with your friend.

As for what to expect on the communication front, there are no rights nor wrongs if you haven’t already discussed it. Some HO’s don’t want any updates while they are on holiday, but a lot like an update every 2-3 days, and some daily, but if you haven’t already discussed how often you would like updates then you can’t expect updates from them.

Personally, if you want updates then I would pop them a message now saying you hope they have settled in nice, and ask if they would give you a daily update with photos, but if they don’t do that, then you can’t really hold it against them, because you should have let them know your requirements before the sit started.

But please relax because they’ve only just arrived today, their priority won’t be on messaging you with your friend greeting them, unless you had previously discussed that they would message you to let you know they had arrived. Their priority will be on your pet, where the pet food is stored, feeding times, where the poop bags or litter trays are etc, and where the kettle is if they’ve had a long journey, but also they will probably be sitting relaxing quietly with your pet so that your pet can relax in their company and get to know them.

They were delayed in getting to you, and perhaps you had no reason to think they could potentially be late, so I understand that has caused you to read more into other things, but it’s only the first day, so give them a chance.

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12

It should be. They had arrived late, and even if it was not directly their fault, they should be apologetic and communicative.

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13

I think that message has already taken place, as the HO had arranged for a friend to greet them instead, so there must have been messages between them prior to arriving. Otherwise it would have been in their post.

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14

I normally get the update schedule before I even confirm the sit. There really is no normal. When the pet parent states they would like as many updates as I can give, then I give them nightly updates. Many will say every other day and some will say once a week. I normally send a quick text when I arrive at the house so that they know I made it and then I’ll send an update later that night. Try reaching out to see how they are doing and if they have any questions about the house and pet. Then discuss the update schedule. Hopefully they are just busy getting to know your animals.

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15

Thank you all! I really appreciate all of your responses. We will have a lot more knowledge for the future.

I think we were just a little concerned because we agreed to meet the day before and she had some issue so she couldn’t start driving in time to make it, then overslept and missed our second time to meet (which we only found about an hour before our set meet time) then we had to scramble to figure out the handoff before we left to travel internationally for 2 months.

Luckily, we finally received an update. I think it will go well, but with four pets and a long trip it was a chaotic start.

We definitely didn’t get upset or short in the messages we sent, and the reason I posted this was to determine what’s typical when we should really start to panic.

Thanks again, all of the advice was helpful to know that we maybe should just wait a little longer.

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16

@blkjackslc As a sitter, if I had missed a planned handover and a rescheduled handover, and the host had to make last minute arrangements for a friend to handover, I would definitely have made a point of getting in touch with you once I had arrived.

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17

If a sitter missed 2 appointments set up and one was from oversleeping…I’m not sure I’d actually follow thru with that person being the sitter for my pets. The person seems very unreliable. I hope it was just a snag and they’re a good fit!!

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18

I do agree that missing two appointments, one of them due to oversleeping is not a good way to start. It’s true nobody is completely free from situations like these but if that happened to me, as a sitter, I would be mortified and I would probably over apologize and get in touch with the owners ASAP to let them know everything was OK and the pets were in good hands. If I had no other way of getting in touch with them, I would ask the person in charge of the handover to inform them and apologize on my behalf.
That said, I would not read too much. There’s really nothing to indicate that your pets are not being taken good care of. So, try to relax, enjoy your trip and ask for updates if that helps.
Best of luck.