I have some concerns about having my listing being public. I notice the following on my listing currently: Not-live - Please add dates. That is fine with me! We have no plans to go away anytime soon, and I see no reason to have private information including photos of my home up on a public website. Is this the way it works? If not, is there any way I can set my listing to private at all times that I am not accepting applications?
Hi @Marion, in the past I would have said you have correctly understood what âNot Live - Please add datesâ means. However, THS seem to be including some listings with no specific dates under the currently advertised ones. I believe them to be sits that were recently advertised but no longer need a sitter. Hopefully @Therese can advise you on this.
Your profile is essentially private until you post dates.
Some sits without dates are sometimes listed under sits in the same area but itâs random. For the most part, the only people who can see your listing are people who have saved it while itâs âliveâ.
IE. If I do a search for sits in âCalgaryâ, I see there are 22 live sits with current dates. If I scroll to the end of those sits, there are a handful of Calgary sits without dates but by no means all of them.
Iâd also add that only members can see your sit even when itâs live. Random people on the internet canât access them without an account (AFAIK).
1 Like
Hi @Marion. Your listing is visible, but only to members of TrustedHousesitters, not to the general public. When I looked it up it shows âCurrently no sitter neededâ. Thatâs how the TrustedHousesitters platform works. Iâve never heard of someone taking their listing offline, so TrustedHousesitters members couldnât see it, once it was created.
Iâm tagging @Therese so, when sheâs next online, she can let us know if sheâs ever heard of anyone who has.
1 Like
Non-members can see your listing if they have a direct link to it. People can also browse/search for sits if theyâre not logged in using the âWhy not exploreâŚâ links in the footer of THS pages, so they could theoretically find your listing this way as well. You can try this yourself by logging out or opening a new private window on your browser.
I had once asked support if there was a way to âturn offâ or hide my listing because I was about to move and it was no longer relevant. They said there was no way to do so. If you want to hide your info, I think you would have to take down the photos and clear the description yourself whenever you donât have active dates, and possibly put in a placeholder picture/description in the meantime.
Thanks. I may do that. I hate to bring this up, but I am afraid that there may be legal issues for people in coops and condos with having overnight sitters. It could be considered an Airbnb like apartment share. It seems like a gray area, so Iâd prefer not to have a listing visible.
1 Like
Agreed, but the chances of a non-member having a direct link are extremely slim.
And as far as âWhy not Exploreâ, the most you can see is the small icon of 2 live sits if youâre not logged in. Thereâs no way to link it to a specific home owner.
This is what I see if Iâm not logged in, I type in Calgary, Anytime.
I canât get further than this.
Finally, as far as concerns about coops/condo rules etc, thereâs no place on there that has your surname regardless, even to members. It might show some pics inside your home. And some pics of your pet. And a general location area. Extremely unlikely anyone from your condo would ever see it unless they are a member and specifically look for your sit and itâs live.
I would also recommend that you refer to your sitter as âa friend who is staying to look after my catâ.
3 Likes
I agree, itâs highly unlikely that a random internet stranger would have a direct link to your house unless they had somehow gotten access to it previously.
Itâs interesting that you get locked out when you go through the âWhy not exploreâ links. I am able to click into the listings themselves before that âOne last thingâ popup appears, and at that point I have the direct URL and can paste it into a new window to view without any interruptions. Even more interesting, I didnât get that pop up at all when I went to the âAll house sitting locationsâ link, drilled down into British Columbia, and clicked around a couple listings.
Again, I very much agree that itâs all very unlikely and it would have to be very targeted for someone to find you, but security by anonymity (aka the idea that you wouldnât be a target since youâre only one of a million people) isnât actually very secure at all. How much this matters of course depends on how paranoid you are or how much you value your privacy, but it should at least be known that itâs certainly possible for someone to find photos of your house if they know what you look like and the city you live in.
At the very least, I donât think itâs accurate to say that only members of THS can view your listing.
Anyway sorry for going off into this rabbit hole. I was a kid in the âthe internet is full of dangerous strangers!!â era so think application security is an interesting black hole to jump into sometimes.
Wow, that is interesting. I wonder if it depends on what browser you are using? I have only tried in Chrome on a MacBook?
1 Like
Iâm on chrome in on a macbook too! I had been trying this in the incognito window and tested again just now by logging out in my normal window. I got the popup when I did the British Columbia thing and clicked into house listings this time, so maybe itâs something with cookies? Iâm not sure what makes it happen!
1 Like
There was recently a NYTimes story about a condo owner in NYC who was told she couldnât have overnight guests in her home when she wasnât home â paid or unpaid. The advice she got was YES your condo can make a rule that âguestsâ canât stay in your apartment if you are not home. I get that this is a stupid rule given that you can have cleaners, petsitters, contractors, and all kinds of people using your keys and coming and going when you arenât there as long as they donât spend the night. I get that the fear is that people will use their homes as Airbnbs and this is terrible for your neighbors. THS homeowners are not doing this. They are obviously vetting the sitters because they are trusting the sitters with their pets, but what the the intent is, and what the law says may be two different things, so Iâve taken my identifying info off my listing and will put it back up the next time I need a sitter.
I do know that there are businesses that search for homeowner listings on Airbnb type sites to report to landlords. And there are offsite forums where people can put links to profiles, so I donât think the privacy concern is entirely unwarranted.
I understand why it helps THS to have profiles they can use in advertising the site to more sitters, but I wish there were a simple âincognitoâ option for homeowners who arenât actively looking for sitters.
2 Likes
Thank you to everyone for the discussions and good advice.
As @Marion mentions, deleting some of the essential information from your listing, will make it ânot liveâ, so this will now not show under the âcurrently unavailable listingâ.
1 Like