We are new on THS & secured our first house sit which is great. We also received our first invitation to sit. Are these fairly common? I understand you still go through the application process & probably lots of others were invited. On this occasion we can’t do the dates, although the location & pet situation were fine. Just interested in people’s experiences of being invited to sit.
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Welcome to THS @ChristineB
I have done 5 sits so far, 2 more booked and have been invited to sit about 3 times. Always by people in my country and aside from the dates not being convenient, I prefer to sit in other countries.
It may depend on where you live as to how frequently you are invited to sit. It may also depend on what you have recorded as your location, as some Housesitters list their desired house sit location as their real location in order to increase their chances of getting a sit. This is because there’s less concern from a homeowner about the sitter arriving on time, or withdrawing their application due to travel costs.
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Hi @ChristineB Well done on confirming your first sit - that’s great 
We received our first invitation to sit within 24 hours of joining THS - it looked like a lovely sit but it was a last minute sit for that same weekend and we were not able to do it .
We have since received a steady stream of invitations (on average once a week , but sometimes 3 in a day) . The majority look like great sits but up until now we haven’t been able to do any of them since the dates or locations haven’t fitted in with our plans . We always send a polite message back and say if we would be interested sitting for them in the future .
A few haven’t been suitable at all . Like one request for the next day that wanted us to drive 200 miles , take a ferry to sit with their anxious dog whilst they went to work - but no overnight stay - so a 200 mile drive and ferry trip to get back home when they returned from work !! That was an easy decline 
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That’s some good information - thank you.
It’s really helpful to get other people’s experiences. Thank you. We’re really lucky for our first sit - a very experienced HO and sitter with tons of positive reviews.
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If you want to read other viewpoints, use the eyeglass at the top right and type in Invitations. That will show up a thread which was raised last year
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Thank you. Will take a look.
We’ve had many invitations to sit over the years. Most of the time its the wrong place or the wrong time or simply a sit we don’t fancy. But a few times things have fallen into place nicely! A particularly memorable sit we were invited to was several years ago- 3 weeks in September in a village in Provence (south of France) a lovely villa with pool, 2 dogs & 2 cats and the best boulangerie ever! It was a dream sit! One of the rare times we flew in especially for a sit. The family even gave us their car to use & we took them to/from the airport. Lovely experience! Pic taken from our profile page.
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What a great invite to sit story - thanks for sharing.
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I’ve gotten about 40 invitations for pet sits. 2 have worked out where I’ve accepted them. If I was retired and still not working full time, I probably would have accepted all of them! 
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I receive invites fairly frequently. Unfortunately, they are always for dates that I already have confirmed sits.
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I get a number of invites, locally and well beyond. It helps to be the right demographic for some hosts. Like I’m an older woman who sits solo and telecommutes. Retiree couples are another appealing profile for many hosts.
Generally, few unsolicited invitations work out timing wise, location wise, etc.
Personally, I don’t do sits longer than three weeks, so I’ve turned down unsolicited invites that have included three months in a waterfront Hawaii condo with two cats.
I also get unsolicited sits via Nomador, mostly in France. Like a pair of hosts wanted me to sit their cats while they went RV’ing for months. I declined that as well.
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