Is there a way to find sitters who want to visit your area?

Owner Questions, Advice & Chat
1

Hi!

Does anyone know if there is a way to search for sitters who want to visit your state, city, etc?

Or should I just wait for people to search for us?

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Hi, Dina, and welcome! If you post your listing, then sitters can find youā€¦ then they can ā€˜favoriteā€™ you by clicking on the heart icon, and get notified each time you post something new.

As a sitter, AFAIK, I can search for locations and identify favorites, but thereā€™s no way for me to indicate where Iā€™d like to travel.

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Hello @Dina and welcome to the forum. If you have a Standard or Premium membership, you will be notified when someone marks you as one of their favourites (on the app) or saves you (on the website).

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As an owner, not having an option for sitters to indicate where they would like to travel to can be frustrating. Iā€™m finding that it seems irrelevant and a huge time waste to reach out to sitters in my area because itā€™s rare that anyone is actually willing to sit when they have their own space/pets to take care of.

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I agree! It would be a great additional feature if sitters could indicate where they want to go at what times.

For example, I am looking for sits in northern Scotland from 4 to 14 October (to close a gap between two already booked sits) and I am looking for sits in Morocco and the neighbouring countries from mid January to April 2023 - but the only thing I can do is to regularly check for new ads. The ā€œnew adā€ notification feature does not work properly. It seems impossible to connect a place with a specific time period.

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Hi @pergamino Youā€™ve received excellent advice from @Lassie. Improving your listing will increase the chances of arranging a successful match.

I would encourage you to take some time to seek out local sitters, given you have a relatively short sit listed. When you contact them, perhaps mention that you are flexible with your dates. Itā€™s acceptable to reach out to multiple sitters at the same time. If you book someone, just notify the others that you have confirmed a sit.

Locals who are most likely to agree to sit are those with references only, or just one or two sits. Check their calendars first to make sure they are not already booked for a THS sit. Iā€™ll add an explanation for the various icons, with examples of what Iā€™ve just mentioned.

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7

Itā€™s so nice to get spontaneous invitations from HOs, but because I am on a long trip around the US, unfortunately all of the messages Iā€™ve gotten from HOs do not match with my actual plans because my current city & state are almost never the same as where I would like to be in a few weeks or months.

I have been changing my profile location to wherever I currently am, but now thinking of adding a section to the top of my profile that roughly describes where I am also looking or willing to travel to. I am just a bit reluctant since it already has my real name & pic, and it seems the sitter profiles are publicly searchable?

Maybe it would be nice to add an option for sitters to indicate somehow to HOs where they are planning to go.

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8

I agree with this 100%. I base a lot of my travel on where I can find a sit - as a house-sitter, I would like to be able to show a couple of locations I am considering and see if anyone wants to match up - it should work both ways. TrustedHousesitters should think seriously about adding that functionality.

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9

I agree. This was discussed yesterday. See the posts by @LBB and @Romana dated June 6 in this topic: https://forum.trustedhousesitters.com/t/filter-suggestions-for-searching/

@Ben-ProductManager and @ArjunaTHS .

To give a HO a better chance for success with their invitations, consider creating these two searchable fields:

  1. Location: Sitters can fill in the specific locations (i.e., by state, region, province, UK counties, etc.) where they want to sit. HO can search for sitters who are interested in sitting in their locale.

  2. Dates: Make the availability calendar crystal clear, just like calendars on airline, hotel or car rental sites. When a sitter opens it on their dashboard, a calendar grid of the entire month should open up. All the dates should be gray or white or a muted color (unavailable by default), including those dates the sitter is already booked for a THS sit, which would have a slash through them. The sitter would be able to highlight those dates when they are available to sit, which could be colored green, blue or some brighter color. Anyone viewing the sitter profile page would be able to view the same calendar. The highlighted days would then be part of a field searchable by HO.

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10

Thanks for this feedback :+1:

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I would also suggest adding an option for smoking/vaping or non-smoking/non-vaping homes and also for the sitters. This is critical to many people and only noted by some of the HOā€™s and sitters. There should also be an option for sitters to opt out of local sits. Several I have spent time inviting donā€™t do local sits, which I understand but it is still a waste of time.

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Hello @BGSoFla Welcome to the forum community. Thank you for contributing to this topic. I have let the Product team know about your feedback. The smoking/vaping filter is a popular one and has been asked about a few times before, so it is good to get additional support for that one :smiling_face: Thank you!