Some cities are so large and might want to find a house sit in a particular neighborhood. How can I so a more specific search? When would be the earliest time I could get more info from the HO? Maybe even to get a particular neighborhood or intersection? It would be such a time saver for sitter and HO….
Welcome to the forum @sandraburshell
Sometimes the reviews from previous sitters state the neighbourhood . Sometimes the host has written it in the home and location section of the listing .
If it’s not mentioned in the listing then you can only find this out by “applying” and asking the question .
We have done this on several occasions-
“Hi we are thinking of applying but first we need to know in which area of xx city are you living ? “
You can add “ I’m looking for sits in xx. neighbourhood . “
There really isn’t any way to narrow down the search in the way you would like to. If there is no mention of the neighborhood in the listing, or in the reviews, and it is important to know this, then it would be best to inquire about this immediately in your application message. You are merely asking for the general neighborhood, not their exact address, so there really wouldn’t be any reason for them to not provide this detail if requested.
I think this is important information to put in the listing and I find that most mention their specific area. But is not uncommon to see listings where don’t say anything at all, or they make mention of what train and bus lines they are near. But that information isn’t particularly useful as that can apply to a wide range of neighborhoods.
You can’t. The THS location system is very limited. If you search for New York City for instance, even narrowing down to Manhattan or Brooklyn, you’ll get everything in a very wide radius. This has zero to do with anything the homeowners are doing. Currently, there if you search New York City you’ll see sits as far as Princeton New Jersey which is almost 2 hours away from New York City by car or train.
On the other hand among these very far away sits for a city like New York, you might miss much closer sits with name places that locals use that don’t sound like the city. For example, there is as I write this a catsit in “Woodside” New York which is languishing, even though Woodside is an area in the borough of Queens very near Manhattan and about a 20 minute subway ride to midtown-Manhattan.
The map feature is also not very helpful.
I would suggest if looking in a major world city, do some research first about nearby towns, neighborhoods and transit. Second, start an application while checking google maps to see how close or far the place actually is and what the transit options are.
It works both ways. There are sits far from cities that show up in city searches. There are areas very close by that people may not realize are actually part of the metropolitan area. I even saw something a couple of weeks ago where a neighborhood in Queens with the same name as a village 3 hours away, was mapped to the village 3 hours away and not showing up in New York sits at all.
It doesn’t look like THS plans to fix this issue anytime soon.
Hello @Steve. Yeah, I’ve mentioned map accuracy or lack of it, in other threads on this topic. For NYC for instance, I can’t get the pin anywhere close to my neighborhood. If I choose “New York City” as nearest location it places the pin about 6 miles south of me on the lower tip of Manhattan. I finally figured out that if choose “Manhattan” (both options are valid) then it puts the dot in the middle of a pond in Central Park, aout 3 miles from my actual location. Neither of these choices affect the sitter searches. Sitters searching for “New York City” or “Manhattan” or “Brooklyn” for that matter will all see the same sits that cover a wide area.
My work-around for more clarity is a map photo in the photos showing the actual neighborhood and a breif explanation about THS map inaccuracy in the listing.