Hello Fellow members,
Every day I receive open spaces for house sits. As soon I look into the sits, they are always in reviewing. If not, and I reply, the owners are always already in contact with others, and at the end they are very sorry, but I was/ am / not the one.
After more then a year of effort, time and of course 2x payments, I don’t believe in it anymore. What is the point of receiving mails with new sits when they are actually already in review or it is already decided that you are not gonne be the one? Who has the same experience? Kinde regards, Anne
Hi everyone, thank you for the replies. although I am NOT NEW, I am already 1 year and 3 months member. So that is absolutely not the case. The case is that I am getting everyday opens sits , but they are already in revieuw alre when I answer, the pet owners are always in conversation with already others and then at the end I am never chosen. So the only thing for me is quiting and go for other agencies, because all the daily effort, time and mondy is a toat waste. the only thing that is left over is frustration! When somebody hires an agency for whatever topic, work, relations, marketing etc. and you got never results then you move on to annother.
@Colin Hi everyone, thank you for the replies. although I am NOT NEW, I am already more then 1 year a member. So that is absolutely not the case. The case is that I am getting everyday opens sits , but they are already in revieuw alre when I answer, the pet owners are always in conversation with already others and then at the end I am never chosen. So the only thing for me is quiting and go for other agencies, because all the daily effort, time and mondy is a toat waste. the only thing that is left over is frustration! When somebody hires an agency for whatever topic, work, relations, marketing etc. and you got never results then you move on to annother.
Clearly the 5 applications rule is one of the reasons why.
But, even if you’re not new, you actually are for the owners because you don’t have any reviews yet.
The links @Colin posted give great advice for new sitters.
Hello @annemiek - before you joined there was no limit to the number of applications a homeowner could receive for their listing. This all changed over a year ago and now the sit pauses automatically at five. This prevents further sitters applying as the homeowner is reviewing applications. Once they decline some applications and unpause the listing it may be open to new applications.
Your success in obtaining your first sit will depend on your personal circumstances and how flexible you are.
If you are applying for sits on certain dates in a specific area you will find it more difficult. Are you working remotely, do you have any experience of caring for a home and pets?
Christmas is an ideal time to get your first sit as sitters are in high demand. If you are available apply for a couple of local short sits to get your reviews from homeowners. Once you have a couple of reviews you will find it easier.
As @Pawtastic says, It doesn’t matter how long you have been a member of THS, In the eyes of a home host, you are a new sitter until you have completed some sits and have received some reviews to prove your competence.
If all the sits you are applying for are going instantly, then this means you are only applying for the very desirable sits.
As a new sitter, with no prior experience or reviews a better strategy will be first to collect some reviews on your profile by doing some of the less desirable sits. There are literally thousands of sits always on the site actively looking for sitters.
By doing this, when you eventually do manage to be quick enough to be one of the first five applicants for the desirable sits, then you will have a much greater chance of being the one selected from those five.
How can you have a review when you never got a chance to sit? That is the story of who was first: the egg or the chicken? The member who replied on this topic were more new than I am, I have reviews from people that I sitted but not via THS. Anyway I have learned my lesson, and and I’m an illusion richer. It costed me more then a year time, effort and money. A donkey doesn’t bump into the same stone twice. enough is enough.
Experienced members are trying to help you and give the advice you asked for. We all had to start somewhere and have picked up a few things along the way.
It sounds like you wanted to vent rather than get advice here. There have been some good tips! Someone with no reviews is very unlikely to get a sit in, say, London or NYC but will probably be able to get one in a small town. Or over a date when lots of people want sitters, e.g. Christmas. Once you’ve got those reviews from THS you’ll be rolling.
I guess your actual question here was whether anyone has had a similar experience. My answer is no. I applied for and got a sit in a town an hour outside of London (last minute weekend), then a slightly longer one in the countryside with way too many animals and other responsibilities.
Following those I get really lucky with scoring a sit in a big city (happened to have something in common with the owner).
Do you have the app? Just getting the daily email will make it harder as the app alerts you instantly when a sit comes up. Strongly suggest downloading it!
I appreciate all the help very much. But I believe that putting effort in this for more than a year etc. having had some chats with THS, my vent is a normal rection. Dont you think?
Thanks and kind regards.
Thank you for your time to answer my question. Yes I do have the app. I tried everything that everybody mentioned. Everyone has their limits and I have no intention of competing any longer.
The time, effort and money I’ve already put into, is just not worth it to me anymore. I wish everyone good housesits but I’m done with it.
Hi @annemiek
It took me 23 applications to get my first sit and review. 18 months later and just about to do my 19th sit! Being part of the THS does work but you need to be proactive and not wait for notifications but visit the site regularly and apply for local/last minute sits.
I applaud your persistence with it. I can’t remember how many applications it took for me before I got my first gig and then my first review but I had to take the ‘low hanging fruit’ as it were, when I first got started and then work my way up from there.
I’d say you’re spot on in that being proactive is so key to success on here and being willing to do some local ones and/or the less popular ones at first just to build up those all important reviews. Thereafter, things definitely get much easier on here as you then have a proven track record.
Oh yeah definitely fair to want to let it out. You’ll find that this forum is mostly people who love THS trying to help out people who’ve had difficult experiences. Outside of the forum I bet there are a lot of people who it hasn’t worked out for.
We just started in March 2023, and we turned full time straight away because we loved it and we have never had more than 1 night in between sits where we weren’t booked for a sit.
But the way we find sits isn’t by waiting for an update at all, instead we search ourselves for whichever particular area we want and filter by the date, and then we get the most recent ones in order.
We’re in the North of England, but from what you have said you must be picking the most popular tourist destinations to have had no result, or maybe your profile needs tweaking, you can always pop your profile on here and ask people what they think, or if you prefer you can pop me a DM and I’ll try to help if you like.
Something to consider even if you leave THS for other pet- and house-sitting platforms:
If you’re choosing only popular locations and/or your profile or applications are weak (there’s no way for us to tell without your sharing), you’ll likely have the same problem(s) elsewhere. It seems more constructive to consider whether you can adjust your approach.
FWIW, I had no issues quickly getting sits on THS. That was partly because I spent time thinking about what pet- and homeowners would need to feel comfortable with any sitter. I also looked at various sitter profiles for examples of good ones. Then I shaped my profile accordingly.
That approach worked for me even without a single reference or review — I started getting sits quickly, including unsolicited offers for sits.
Recently, I checked out another sitting platform for locations that THS isn’t flush with. I just copied over my THS profile info and immediately got interest from a homeowner for a hard-to-get location that goes very quickly. They’ve already said they’d like for me to sit next year, because I’m not sitting for the rest of 2023. And that was the only sit I’ve expressed interest in on that platform.
Whichever platform you use, homeowners with pets will tend to have the same concerns and questions. That’s because it’s about their pets and homes, not about the platform.
Thank you so much for reaching out. I made my profile up with a petsitter from Ths self. She has also a lot of petsitting for the USA, but I am not interested in the USA. I did everything I could, changed everything, etc. It took me to much energy that I don’t have de courage anymore. like I said I don’t feel good anymore to compete more than a year. It is supposed to be fun, not irritation and frustration. Thank you again and wish you a lot of good petsittings.
To me it seems that you don’t want all the advice you have been given, because you already had made up your mind.
I wish you good luck, but as @Maggie8K said, you will not be more successful on other sites if you don’t change your approach. How, nobody here can tell you, because you didn’t share your profile and the locations you were applying for.