Very good points. And I wish THS would investigate every cancellation or get rid of the cancellation button and have to go through membership to cancel
Exactly! What I said post #11
@Newpetlover great minds think alike 
You said it all! Thank you!
I cannot imagine they would let sitters contact HO without them posting a sit. Because someone with a FL ocean front condo, with all kinds of amenities and a tiny dog or cat would get a thousand emails from sitters for winter sits.
@Huronbase I think there should be option for hosts to opt in or out of receiving messages from sitters. Some hosts may welcome sitter interest. Or perhaps they could set a limit on how many messages they can receive so they don’t get overwhelmed. There are definitely times it would be super helpful to be able to contact hosts outside of an application. Especially now that you cannot even apply/make contact at all if you are ‘already busy on another sit’ Grrrr…
I understand your logic but I think the most desirable sits would be overwhelmed by messages. So even if they limit them to 5 messages per day, or per week. How could a sitter possibly get through. I seriously could see thousands applying to really attractive sits.
But it would be useful if both HOs and sitters had the option of allowing messages or not. You could open that option whenever you wanted and it would show on your profile.
So you could click whether you wanted unsolicited messages? That would seem OK. And if you had a first class sit, you could just opt out of getting messages. If we can favorite, can HO block sitters?
It’s just an idea but I think it would be really useful and equitable. Both HOs and sitters would be able to block all or some specific messages and that could be turned on and off depending on the circumstances.
This could include the possibility of being contacted by fellow sitters or HOs, which could be really useful as reference but I doubt THS would be interested in doing that, it could lead to losing clients on both sides.
#5 for me.
Yeah the amount of free labor to “maintain” their home seems to be getting out of control, i just laugh at some of them that are looking for a property caretaker along with a pet sitter for free.
I love the pet sitting and opportunity to save $ on travel that is a win-win for both the homeowner and sitter in my opinion.
There should be an option for the homeowner to offer to pay for all the extra services along with the free pet sit. I think the reasonable homeowner would be willing to pay as they would have to pay or someone if it the pet sitter doesn’t do it or at least give a tip to the sitter as a thank you.
@Junior Owners CAN pay for other “workers” to come onto the property while the THS Sitter is present.
All of this should be disclosed in the listing and the Welcome Guide with specific details.
We have had the following:
Cleaners
Gardeners
Pool guy
Fish tank guy
And when a water heater failed:
Plumber
I think that would spoil the whole concept of exchange and it would be very difficult to manage at an international level with different labor laws and regulations. It could also easily turn into black labor market.
I guess what I’m saying is the excessive add ons and expected labor on some of these posts are already ruining the concept of the exchange.
As far as labor laws and a black market I think you are overthinking this one…
I’m talking what would amount to basically a tip for the extras…
As for me, I’ll continue to work with reasonable people with reasonable expectations…
Agreed that unreasonable expectations can be a problem. I just skip those sits, though, and hope that most other sitters do as well, so those hosts realize they should scale back or leave for platforms better suited to their needs.
I don’t want any encouragement or support from THS to help make extra work viable, even with tipping or such. I have zero interest in earning money via THS sitting. I just want reasonable exchanges.
If the listings end up tipping toward many with extra duties, I’ll just quit THS, because that’s not my interest. I bet many sitters would. If it hit a tipping point, it would mean spending too much time screening for reasonable sits.
Meanwhile, I’ve done sits where there have been cleaners, gardeners, window washers, all of which are fine to me. But I want to know ahead, to avoid being in the way say if I have meetings that conflict time wise as a telecommuter.
I am an overthinker. Can’t help it! But I’d like to make my point clear. If you get tips for jobs that should be paid jobs, abiding labor rights, social security, safety, etc, you end up contributing to exploitation and reduction of jobs. Also, I really doubt if an accident happened while carrying out such undeclared work, holiday or house insurance would be willing to pay.
But each to their own, as @Maggie8K said, I would quit THS if it got to that point. One thing is a nice gesture of appreciation and a totally different one, getting away with tipping instead of paying for real work.
It feels to me like you’re watching this from a US perspective. Here in Europe running a criminal background check on an arbitrary citizen is simply illegal, and nobody (not even the police) would divulge this information to you.
So… I’ve read through this thread now. I did not know there were these discrepancies between sitters and HO (I’m only an HO) on this platform - we don’t get to glimpse into each others’ worlds unless we sign up for both sides of the coin.
Although I sympathise with the original post, I believe @Newpetlover explained the reasons for this well, and I concur there’s good reason for these differences (messaging etc.).
I still believe everybody should be able to mark their calendar as being “unavailable” because life.
The topic of cancellation is of course a much more touchy and important one. I think neither a sitter nor a HO should be able to “just cancel”; the process should always be moderated, reasons should be given, and timeframes should be respected.
As a sitter, if I had to cancel, I would inform the HO of the reasons as early as humanly possible - certainly not less than three weeks out-, so they have the chance to click the “cancel” button and post the sit again (which also doesn’t always seem to work so well), or contact one of the other applicants which may not be available anymore.
As a homeowner I am much more vulnerable there and dependent on the sitter showing up than the other way around.
For a sitter, a cancellation means they can’t go on vacation, but unless they’re a nomad, they have their place set up to live. Mild inconvenience; if there are booked tickets involved, the HO should of course reimburse.
For a HO, everything is in shambles, flights, conferences, vacations, etc.; lining up another sitter on short notice might be difficult or impossible to do.
Food for thought, or just crazy HO thinking… you decide…
You might not know about an emergency 3 weeks out, hence the word emergency.
Sitters are extremely vulnerable to cancellations and can be out hundreds or even thousands for flights and/or alternative accommodations. Or a cancellation could leave a sitter with no place to stay if they don’t have thousands set aside to cover accommodations if a longer sit is cancelled (I had a 10-day sit cancelled in an expensive area and I had already traveled there, so it wasn’t a matter of just don’t go. The cheapest accommodation I could find at the last minute was $2000 for the 10 days). It’s not just mild inconvenience. I find that statement really disrespectful of sitters who put a lot of time, effort, and money into making plans to travel to the host’s destination.
Hey systaran, no disrespect was intended!
Firstly, I’m not talking about nomads that 100% live in HO’s homes.
I am sorry you got washed up in that expensive area, and I suppose nobody reimbursed your costs while you were stuck there (I would certainly have, but there’s all kinds of people here). You having travelled there early and thus the cancellation hitting you harder than necessary is of course not the responsibility of the HO, you being stuck there is. You omitted to quote the part where I wrote that their expences should be reimbursed.
All this does of course exclude emergencies, which can and will happen, and then everybody has to deal with that. Still, I do not think that an unmoderated cancellation process (as now exists, and even one-sided) is appropriate.
I also stand by my opinion that HOs are more vulnerable by cancellations. The consequences of a sitter not showing up are quite dire.