We’ve had mostly excellent experiences with THS. I had a couple applicants for Memorial Day and now it’s getting too close. How do I encourage more applicants? It’s our 2nd year so we are still on the newer side. We’ve had a couple bad reviews so I hope that isn’t holding back the applicants. Please advise how to entice more applicants.
You need to attach your listing for feedback .
Generally bad reviews will put sitters off from applying -
Please share your profile. Regarding bad reviews, have you made any changes in your listing to overcome whatever the issue(s) were? Did you reply to the bad reviews with a “reason” or rebuttal to the bad review? (I understand from others here that there is no time limit for replying to a sitter review.) Be sure you get advice here before replying so the forum members can help guide you, there are some amazing experienced folks here with great advice and wordsmithing. Cute pups!! 
I’m in Geneva Illinois US. Karen with 2 dogs.
I guess it depends on how bad the bad reviews were. Just one, you can probably overcome. Two is harder as it’s a pattern and indicates you don’t learn well from prior mis-steps. You do need to address whatever the issues were, either by disclosing the issue up front in your listing, or correcting it and indicating you’ve done so.
I just saw your listing. Three sitters gave you 5’s in every category with positive remarks. One mentioned you even lent him the car which is a plus. Two sitters mentioned your house was very dirty. One of those sitters is no longer here to check out her profile. The other sitter’s profile shows she has lots of threes for not being clean herself so I can’t take her review seriously. I like your house. I would just remake the bed as it looks like something is in it. Make it look neat like walking into a hotel room. Your dogs are adorable and you sound like nice hosts leaving pizza for them and a use of a car. Looking at the pictures I would apply. Reading the strong negative remarks, not sure. If you can get more positive reviews to get all the negative ones on the bottom of a sea of positive ones would really help. Good luck.
Found your profile. Here are some suggestions to improve the listing (pics only). I didnt read through the details or reviews. I’s sure others will respond with tips on those.
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change the 1st pic of the profile to either the front of the house or better yet your cute dogs.
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bathroom pics are not good, too close up, retake zooming out to show the whole bathroom
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The bed looks uninviting with no pillows and a wrinkled comforter, fix and retake pic. ALso include pic showing the entire room , are there dressers? Side tables with the bed? Useful for sitters.
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the kitchen looks cluttered with the flowers and pots on the counters/table, clear off the areas and retake a acouple new pics from different angles. Looks like there is maybe a dining table but no pic shows this.
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The room with a bench and plants - hard to see what kind of room this is, widen the shot to show the room better
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there is not a workspace (desk and chair) shown, this is important
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is there a nice place to sit and enjoy the patio area? hard to tell. Clean up the area and make it look inviting and retake pic.
If you are not great at taking pics find somene who can help you. It will be worth it.
Two out of five reviews mention cleanliness as an issue. So, first I would have the house professionally cleaned before the sit, and mention that in your listing.
Next, the dogs don’t seem to walk well on leash. Get a trainer and some tools (gentle leaders are great) to help with this but it’s not safe to ask sitters to walk 2 large dogs if they aren’t trained to walk well on leash.
Lastly, Geneva is lovely but your home and location section needs improvement. How far to the nearest lake, walking trails nearby, etc.
Otherwise your home looks lovely and your pups are cute. Good luck!
I decided to read the reviews. Cleanliness is clearly a problem, and it is difficult to hear as a Home Owner. I suggest addressing this in your profile in the ‘Home & Location’ area. My knee-jerk reaction is to hire someone to do a professional deep cleaning of your house; this will be expensive, but then you can mention it in your profile. You should also clean your house more thoroughly than you normally would prior to a sitter’s arrival, always.
Your level of clean is not aligning with others and is definitely keeping some from applying. If you want to overcome this history, you need to take action and do things differently. Everyone has different tolerances for a ‘lived-in’ home. Your ‘Home & Location’ description refers to the home as a ‘chaos zone’ with ‘always something going on’—this section should focus on the home and location, things to do nearby, and that your car is available for use (if that applies to all sitters). Specify that you will want to see a valid driver’s license to protect yourself. You can remove the reference to the deep cleaning once the reviews improve.
Also, I suggest removing the restrictive arrival and departure times you have for every sit listed. Instead, change them all to TOoBe Determined discuss and adjust those once you hone in on a sitter.
@Gigi26 The first thing I’ve noticed is that you’ve skipped sections in the Amenities. There’s no information on beds or wifi. These are essential details for all sitters. If you’ve skipped any other sections, it’s best to complete them.
You need to mention where the dogs sleep. Sitters have preferences about whether they can be in the bedroom or on/in the bed.
You mention to bring the dogs indoors if they bark excessively. There was also mention in a review about them not being trained. These may deter sitters from applying and certainly may be a negative for a solo sitter.
You’ve received excellent suggestions from forum members. After reading your reviews, I think it may be hard to have sitters give you the benefit of the doubt that your home will be clean. I know I would not take the chance.
One thing not mentioned so far in feedback is that your sits are for three days. If a sitter has to pay a booking fee, it’s another negative point as it’s a relatively short stay.
Actually I became quite interested in that one sitter ‘Caitlin’ reading her own reviews and also her replies to any negative reviews given to her by HOs…. pretty interesting tbh. It gave quite an insight into some pretty challenging sits which she stuck with. Overall I got quite a good impression of her….
Now that is frustrating, the link won’t work for me, and like you @BonnyinBrighton I get a bit fascinated by the human dynamics. Can I be bothered to search out that sit?
The link does not work correctly. I found the listing on my own. Can you please try and fix it? Thanks.
I just tried the link and it works, but you have to cut and paste it. That’s typical with new accounts or ones with low activity.
Got the cut and paste working, Cheers Maggie, but now I can’t get Caitlin’s details. Damn this infernal curiousity of mine 
Caitlin’s link is inactive for me as well.
Karen, you have duplicate photos of the dogs on the trampoline. Maybe use that space for more photos of the house. The photo of the shower curtain doesn’t accomplish anything. Agree about wider angles of the bathroom & bedroom if you can get them. One review implies that the photos are old and that even the cupboards & countertop are different. If your house looks substantially different now you should update the photos.
Your introduction is pretty sparse. Large back yard and pizzas in the freezer. OK, but maybe a little about you and more about the house? Home & location: is there more to do in the area? What attractions could sitters visit?
Agree about having a professional cleaning, and addressing some of the sitters’ concerns in an updated listing. Dogs that may bark “excessively” and lack training would put some off. I think the comments about cleanliness will deter many. Sitters that felt they could neither shower nor eat there for nearly 2 weeks, that’s kind of shocking to read. Your replies are also kind of sparse and wouldn’t ease my mind any, unfortunately.
Hopefully an update with some reference to issues being addressed will get you some more applicants and some good reviews to counter those ones. Good luck.
Thank you for your time and comments. I appreciate them.