That’s great! How was Exeter?? I can’t wait to go.
@Patti0304
You will love Exeter. Try also to visit some of the nearby towns too whilst you are there. Topsham, Exmouth, Totnes, Lympstone village, etc - all very easy to get toon the train.
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Welcome! There are very few Sit opportunities without pets, but perhaps you will get lucky and find one that suits you!
Good luck! 
Are you a sitter, a pet parent, or neither?
Sitter! I love animals and being around them always lifts my mood.
**What brings you to the Forum?
I’m curious to learn more about how payments work—what to expect, how they’re processed, and any tips from experienced folks.
What are your hobbies or interests?
Psychology, animals (of course!), writing essays for fun, and anything related to space.
What’s something fun or unique about you?
I genuinely enjoy writing academic-style essays in my free time—especially when I get to dig into human behavior or social dynamics!
If you’re an experienced Forum member, what’s your specialist area for giving advice?
(Not quite a veteran yet, but I’d love to learn and contribute where I can!)
So, for experienced sitters- if an owner offers payment or a gift- but i do not ask for it, is it ok to accept it?
Hello everyone! My name is Bella, and I am interested in doing some pet sitting / Dog walking this summer! I am a recent college graduate looking forward to traveling this September and would love the opportunity to spend time with pets before I leave. I have two dogs, a cat, and a tortoise who is a lot faster than you would think. Some of my hobbies include reading (love books), baking/cooking (I work at a cafe/bakery on the weekends), and going on walks (naturally). I am new to this site and Forum, and love advice as to how to get started-- this is me making the first step! Let me know if there is anything else I can do to get myself out there and to start house/pet sitting!
Bella
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Welcome to the Forum @bellaagliolo 
have you set up your Trusted Housesitters profile yet?
Hi @Jenny
I live in Melbourne and I am a social worker now involved in research at La Trobe University. I plan to spend most of Dec in London as my daughter is having a baby!! I will be on my own for the first bit but then my husband will join us over Christmas. We bought our German Shepard and a rescue cat to Melbourne 2 years ago from Cape Town and we love them beyond words! It’s made the relocation to a new country so much easier. So, I also will be looking for pet sitters myself!
I hope to find something close-ish to my daughter - she is in East London - Clapton. Any advice would be appreciated . Is there any way one can post an advert on the platform?
Glad to have found you and looking forward to many adventures.
Warmly
Julie
Hello, I’m opting for the medium package on July 1st. IDK what I’ll find? I’m in East Central Iowa. IDK what travel I’ll have to do for an “assignment”? I have so many questions, but I’ll browse the forum a bit before I get active—thank you for being added.
I’m in the same boat, but in the Upper Midwest. I guess it is time to get the toes wet!
@joeliniowa here, East Central to be exact. LOL. How do I express 55 years of “Animal Husbandry” Most every genis but equine (ewww). Lagamorph’s are my speciality. An Iowa Farm kid (never grew up). I’ve seen pretty graphic adds. Yes I can build one, one of my trades is a Graphic Artist. Another is a Fiber Artist - I have a traveling spining wheel. Besides being a IT Geek with 30 years of Professional Experience. I’m too expensive for that trade anymore. I can do tiny remote consulting gigs. Oh, so where to start?
Hello. My name is Marnie, I am 58 years old, and live in Pennsylvania. I have worked in healthcare for the past 20 years. I’m looking for a fresh start. I recently had a bad situation at my home while taking care of my father. Long story short,my brother (POA) got furious with me because I turned him in for taking thousands of dollars from my father.. NOW everyone is mad and wants me out of the house. I’m very trustworthy, willing to travel, afraid to fly tho never have.love animals. Recently I had to bury my beloved cat, Maggie. Hardest day of my life. I like quite and calm. I’m very clean,my friends think I might have OCD.
Welcome to the Forum, @joeliniowa and @mmaines1966 
wishing you both lots of luck as you start your THS journey!
I didn’t want to start a whole new topic for this, but how do I sort EXISTING topics so that the newest replies show at the TOP? There are some threads that are SO LONG that by the time I scroll down to the newest posts I’ve kind of lost interest. 
I did search the help etc. to no avail - how can I make it so that when I click on a topic, the most recent posts about that topic show first? Or is it possible to “collapse” very old threads (like there’s stuff from 2022 that was only relevant to the pandemic) so I can see the more recent stuff without endless scrolling?
Hi @KittySitter
That’s a really good question!
There’s no option to sort by “new topic” at the moment, but I can see why it would be useful.
I have something of a workaround for it…
As an example, this is the URL for a discussion post. I had to put a space after the https:// to stop it formatting to a preview!
https: //forum.trustedhousesitters.com/t/how-it-started-how-it-s-going/65543
You’ll see at the right hand side of the discussion page, there’s a post count which tells you the post number you’re on:
For you to quickly get to the most recent post, you would add a / and then the number on the right to the post URL in your browser, e.g.
https: //forum.trustedhousesitters.com/t/how-it-started-how-it-s-going/65543/5
That would then take you to the newest post in the discussion, and you could work your way backwards (although this does mean that you’d be reading posts in reverse order).
You make an interesting point about “collapsing” old threads. There’s certainly a case to be made for the Forum team to look at archiving old discussions that may no longer be relevant. We likely wouldn’t be able to remove older posts from long-standing discussions though. What could be considered, is starting new discussion posts for long-standing topics that people are still interested in chatting about. We’ve done that before for a couple of very popular topics.
I’d be interested in hearing from our members about which existing subjects could use a fresh new discussion thread!
Thanks for raising this @KittySitter - I’ll have a chat with @Mark_B and see what we could do here.
Jenny
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Oh that’s very helpful! Thank you so much.
As a general approach, I think anything that requires scrolling more than 10 times could be “collapsed” - fine if an archive of the old thread is there (it can be fun to go back and look at the past). Or maybe at least collapse by year, so have "here’s the 2022 discussion of “Who’s on a Housesit Now? How’s it Going” - it started in May 2021 and apparently has 3,078 responses. So a 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 “archive” might be okay and then the 2025 one wouldn’t be so overwhelming. Starting a new thread with a BRIEF summary by year and a link to the whole darned thing if people want to see it would encourage me to participate more. 2021 was a VERY different year.
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4 posts were split to a new topic: How do I get an International Driving License (France)?