Deb and I have been a THS member since 2011 completing 179 house sits around the world.
Over the past number of months, I notice that there are many posts in the forum which direct the source of change made to features on the THS website (and app) to new members being either irresponsible and/or solely looking for a free place to stay and not necessarily being concerned about the pets in their care, or using bots to troll for new sits etc etc. Please note that I dislike the 5-application limit and the new rule that inhibits overlapping house sits
In a lot of cases this is directed at younger house sitters by existing sitters who now have to work harder to be accepted by owners on new listings, if they can get an application in amongst the 5-application limit.
I am not sure where this comes from as I can see no substantiated evidence or stats that this is the case. THS has been around since 2010 and even back then there were good and not-so-good sitters based upon the reviews and feedback given. Fast forward 13 years until the present where the number of sitters is now 47 times the number then and a new generation of sitters seeking sits has entered the scene. Both the older retired set and the younger generation. In that 13 years the world has changed. People do things differently. People travel differently. Sitters work from home.
Let’s stop blaming them for the change. If the bot question was proven to be true, then those people are using technology to their advantage. There are also a few of the longer terms sitters who would love that technology if they don’t use it already.
Younger people become our tradesmen, leaders, our doctors, our lawyers, our nurses, our new pet owners. New/young members will become, if not already, as good housesitters as the ones we ‘more experienced’ ones profess to be.
Oh yes. I don’t think the people using bots to trawl THS for nice sits are new members. They probably were members since before the limit was introduced.
The point of the complaints is mainly that THS advertising is just focused on growth. With those stock photos of exceptional properties where one can enjoy the high life at the pool for free, etc.
This seems like a straw man argument. If THS is focused on growth, full stop, then even if the proportion of “bad” sitters stays the same, it is only logical that sheer volume will increase those numbers as well.
What many people are objecting to is the growth strategy which focuses on “free” accommodation, without taking into account the aspect of responsibility. I don’t blame newer sitter for their expectations, I blame the venture capitalists who value growth at any cost.
I agree but THS itself is throwing those new members under the bus with statments like this one from Trustpilot:
“As our platform grows, we have seen a small number of instances where the ability to overlap a house sit has been mis-used and resulted in pets being left unattended for an unacceptable period of time.”
By rolling out an “update” that had consequenses they clearly hadn’t foreseen because they don’t bother looking at how people actually use the app or getting user feedback before making adjustments, they’ve wound up in a situation where (1) dual-membership sitters can no longer provide solo coverage at the start or end of a sit in order to avoid gaps between sits – resulting in a decrease of their availability making fewer sitters availability to HOs, (2) all “full time” sitters who may have dates on sits “informally” changed by agreement after confirmation cannot even apply to sits that happen on dates when they aren’t actually sitting unless they demand that HOs change the dates, which can’t actually be done once a sit starts, and even before then HOs might not want to be bothered with a process that involves cancelling a sit and reinviting the sitter privately.
By not listening to existing members and continuing to make it sound like they “had to” make these changes “for the pets” because of this “new” problem, they are encouraging members to blame “the new people.” The truth is the previous system that allowed sitters to be two places at once was flawed and should have been changed years ago. I’m sure one can find evidence of bad outcomes with this going back years, and more growth means more bad outcomes. But because of the way people use the site, changing it without making it easier to adjust dates to the actual dates and making an allowance for couple’s who can split up and cover two sits on one account, will actually have the end result of making fewer sitters available.
100% with you that sitters who recently signed up shouldn’t be blamed nor should any demographic of sitters.
The advertising of ‘free’ accomodation in exchange for house and pet minding is not at all new.
In the 12 years we have been involved with THS, the message has been the same. Where, years ago it was TV/radio interviews with THS staff and sitters at the time (we did 3 in England and 3 in Australia) or newspaper articles (I count 5 that we did) espousing what a win-win situation housesitting was and how it worked.
Yes, there is and always will be free accomodation associated with house sitting as well as care of pets and property. That’s the way it works. That form of advertising worked then with an increase from 2000 members when we joined in 2011 to the 40K+ reported before the Covid pandemic. And this was when the company did not have venture capital injected.
Since then membership has increased by many many more (I don’t have access to membership growth charts for THS, however someone posted figures of 60K+ and 90K+). The only difference with the current stream of advertisements is that most of it is digital and social media which means it reaches a lot more people quicker. The message has never changed!
Personally, I heard about THS years ago via word of mouth. WOM messaging is similar, and that’s not in the control of THS.
I’ve seen some old-timers bashing newcomers and/or young folks and find it funny, because that’s also very much human behavior, which doesn’t fundamentally change. Like I don’t need to have joined THS years back to know that there have always been bad sitters mixed among the good. It’s common sense.
I finally joined THS this year and have been having great sits. Look forward to more.
Obviously where there’s growth, and if that growth is in part caused by making this site sound a bit ‘too good to be true’ (when I signed up in 2015, THS created a different impression than it does in recent ads), there will be more bad apples.
What a lot of people are upset about is the blanket approach to this - we’re here to do interesting sits, and to make the exchange between sitter and HO easy such that both get the best value.
However the 5 application rule, banning overlapping sits, etc are making that exchange harder, and result in less value for the sitter of using this site. While the HO may be left with less, or less suitable sitters applying for their sit. That there are certain problems with the use of THS - understood, let’s do something about it.
Nonetheless, at the moment that approach is:
Introduce a blanket feature that affects all sitters
Do not involve the sitters in getting their feedback and testing it in advance of the feature being rolled out
After roll-out, if it turns out that there’s some real issues that negatively affect sitters, collect but ignore the feedback provided and insist that nothing will change about the feature that just got rolled out.
If I look at myself: I’m in continental Europe where the number of sits is just a fraction of those advertised in UK. And then I only sit in cities/towns with good public transport (no car needed), usually cats which makes these sits very popular.
I have nearly 9 years experience on this site, with 5 star reviews. used to be pretty successful in getting sits; some years up to 10 sits. Since the 5 appl rule got introduced, I’ve had the least number of sits since I joined this site: in total I’ve done 2 sits in the past 12 months, 3 sits in the past 1.5 years. I’d love love love to do more!!
I can’t with any certainty attribute this to the rule, but I do know that I work full time (freelance) which limits my ability to constantly refresh & check the site. And I do know that when my favourites post sits, I often miss out because the sit fills up with 5 applicants before I can spot the listing. I also know on the overlap part, that I’ve had many many sits whereby the actual sit dates were not correct. Even during the Covid years I had more sits (about 5 a year). So this website has unfortunately become less valuable to me in the past 1+ year. And if there was a competitor with a sufficiently large volume of Europe-beyond-UK cat/city/town sits, I would probably jump ship after all those years.
I do think there have been some problems associated with TH’s growth, though. It is of course good that more people get to benefit from what is mostly an excellent site, but when organisations grow beyond a certain point, issues around values, perception and communications can creep in.
I think that’s what’s happening with the detrimental changes we’ve recently seen. They’re symptoms: unintended consquences of growth. Inevitably with growth come changes, which is why it needs to be handled really carefully, involving everyone concerned.
I don’t think anyone is blaming new members. In fact I think some new members are joining because of false hopes and expectations. Some of the adverts that are being highlighted verge on false advertising. “Come and have a luxurious holiday in a must see location.” They mention one or two pets to look after but forget the exercising the dogs for a couple of hours a day, watering the garden, keep the animals company for most of the time there.
THS are implementing changes to make more money. End of.
Perhaps I should have made a video of my last day of this sit for any new sitters. It is a regular one for us so I know the dog, where all the cleaning equipment is etc.
Started at 7am
Taking the dog for a walk
Back for breakfasts and a shower
Do the bedding and towels
Pack the car
Lunch
Vacuum and mop while hubby takes him for another walk
Shower and dry the dog as it is a mud bath out there
Feed the dog
Wash dog towels and blankets
Empty bins and recycling
Make a meal for us
Now sat down with a well earned cup of tea and await return of homeowner whose flight is running late due to fog.
Just a day in the life of a pet sitter
It isn’t glamorous or Instagram worthy
@Twitcher There could be a whole series - Housesitting : Instagram vs Reality
Picture the scene… A beautiful beach on a Sunday afternoon. A family clad in dryrobes, walking a handsome Hungarian Vizsla…
Except the beach is in Wales, it is November, torrential rain is blowing sideways along the beach and into our dryrobe hoods that are fastened up so tightly that only our noses and eyes are visible. We are literally the only people on the beach!
So true @Debbie - we had a two week sit in Wales this year (September). The weather was dreadful .
I have also lost count of the number of sits advertised with outdoor pools that we couldn’t even brave in July and August.
Happy travels
No it’s not off topic. It is giving examples of the reality of pet sitting to new comers. Most of the time it’s fantastic with some hard work. Other times its ***** *****. But I still wouldn’t swap my life.
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