Does anyone know how to manage availability for the purpose of crossing off dates you will not be available? I will be assisting a family member for a month (non Trusted House Sitter related) and want to make sure anyone searching for me to be their sitter knows that I will not be available to sit at some point, so they can save time and not have to ask if I’d like to sit.
Hope this makes sense, and I appreciate anyone or persons willing to assist me on this!
Excellent, as always. Being full time “elsewhere”, I have started changing my location to where I am or where I will be. Because I am now doing more independent arrangements, some very long term (which is super exciting) I have indicated on my headline and in my profile my “non-availability”.
My home and pet sitting adventures have taken a very interesting new path but more on that later
@Jasmine please read the most recent post by@Petermac 1 day ago as he explains how the calendar works. In short for your situation your calendar default is that you are unavailable (shown as white) until you manually input your available dates (shown as green)
Absolutely agree. I have just wasted hours and hours reading profiles and sending individual invitations only to receive responses saying sorry we are not available. I know that at least some of these are genuine as they have asked to be invited to any future dates we might have along with lovely comments.
I finally found someone I liked who actually had green dotes, but it wasn’t easy.
Surely, when you apply your dates in the search, only those with green dots for those dates should appear.
70 sent invites/messages to sitters later, I found someone who could do my sit. But yes, much time wasted as there should only be sitters with green availability when you do the search.
As has been mentioned somewhere above, I might have Green dates but am actually not available for some of that because I’m either sitting for a friend not via THS or doing other things.
@Maggie58 and @Catin88 Please keep in mind that not all sitters use the calendar. There are conversations on the forum where many feel the calendar is not user friendly. Sitters have a wide range of lifestyles and formats for being a THS member; what works for one doesn’t for another. As well, some people are more detail-oriented than others.
Bottom line is that your best bet is to only take notice of the dates that have a black line through them, as you know those are THS confirmed sits. Don’t discount those whose calendars are all white (supposedly unavailable) as it just might mean they don’t keep their calendar current, for whatever reason.
Yes, that’s exactly why I sent 70 messages/invites to sitters. Some of those were green availability and the rest were white. I sent messages to the ones in white for the exact reasons you pointed out lol
Yes, I’d like to second your (3) third point. Listings often say “prefer a single sitter”, whereas we travel as a couple, … I’d love to “hide” those, for example.
Hi, when i search for sitters and put in the dates i am finding very few people have filled in the dates they are available.
Is this because they are not available or because they just have not updated when they are available?
@dew1later You will see many posts and conversations on the forum about the calendar. You can view these by searching ‘calendar’ using the spyglass search option. Bottom line is, because the calendar is not used consistently (and sometimes not at all) you are best to only consider the dates marked with a black line through them as the sitter being unavailable, as they are confirmed THS sits.
I think many of the problems arising from the non use of the calendar is that it is simply not highlighted on the site in a positive way or even labelled calendar so it is often missed by both sitters and HO’s. I have ‘manage availability’ way down the dashboard and that passes by many people - and me on occasions.! If the web manager strengthens the focus, eg, ‘important! please check availability on calendar’ then it may be better used but inevitably not by everyone so it will always cause some issues.
As a newbie sitter, this thread has been immensely helpful. Before finding this, I used the Help function. The Help function was useful in that it told me where to go to edit the calendar. But first try, I was unaware that I was adding available dates, not unavailable dates.
A little more explanation on the help or on the app page “Add available dates” would make it clearer and possibly encourage more calendar use.
I wish they were separately listed as I only want single sitters as my flat is not big and there appear to be a lot more couples listed than on previous occasions when I’ve looked.
As a nomadic house sitter, I’ve been trying to find a way to block off time that I am “not” available when I’m on vacation but surprisingly there doesn’t seem to be a way to do this. There’s only a way to show availability. I think the calendar could be improved to allow sitters to block off their unavailable time too. This has got to be frustrating for people looking for sitters.
The thing is, showing availability in the calendar doesn’t mean sitters are available for any sit, anywhere. I think that’s what some pet parents don’t appreciate.
How can it be ‘time-wasting’ for a HO? Sitters are not paid workers who must deliver a service to any home owner who needs a sitter, we are trying to organise our schedules to facilitate sits we choose to do, in areas we’d like to visit, with pets we’d like to look after. There’s a lot to think about and organise! It’s a far better plan to wait for sitters to respond to your listing, since then it’s a considered application from sitters who intend being in your area, at the time you’re needing help.
