@avidtraveler WHY do you suspect any sitter would want to sleep in your bed, if there’s a perfectly good guest bed available to them? The potential intimacy scene thing works both ways! 
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I really appreciate the honesty! We have a very small home with no locking doors, but I plan to store some things in the garage.
As one person said, these forums often speak to the sitter. In fact, the You Tube vids I’ve watched are also sitter driven, so these bits of insight have really helped me. Thanks.
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I think this is the three bears syndrome… worried that the sitter will try all the beds and eat up all your food ! I wouldn’t leave any porridge cooling.
Or maybe if there are five bedrooms that the sitter will fill them all with friends for a party!
I sat for someone who had a huge house with pool and yes she’d been taken advantage of by the last sitter who did throw a party!
Reviews are a good guide and external cameras for evidence should you need to follow up. Surely your friendly neighbours can see who’s coming and going and alert you?
It’s sad such people are drawn to take advantage of a situation whilst many others do such a brilliant job of caring for things while the home owner is away. It gives us all a bad name.
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Honestly, before we joined THS, friends made the suggestion to lock our bedroom so people don’t sleep in our bed.
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I can honestly say, we’ve never, ever been tempted to sleep in a host’s bed! We don’t even apply for sits where sitters have to sleep in the main bedroom. It seems a bit too personal, somehow.
Yes, I’d rather not sleep in a host’s bed if they have a comfortable alternative. But I’ve been repeatedly offered a host’s bed on multiple sits, even when there were comfortable alternatives.
One pair of hosts cleared out space in the master bedroom closet and bathroom and switched out all their bed linens before leaving in the afternoon, unasked. They said they wanted me to have the best view and most comfortable room, because I should enjoy my time at their home. Very kind. I kept to one of their guest rooms, though.
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Maybe based on experiences? I don’t think you can assume the boundaries of others even with good reviews. Years ago we had a neighbor sit for us. She was supposed to just do drop ins. I was adamant about that. Yet, she slept on our bed even though we hadn’t even changed the sheets! And some other creepy stuff. And this is nobody’s business but I sit as well and if a homeowner keeps something locked or has a cabinet taped or whatever, it’s none of my business and I’m okay with that. I don’t need to know why. It’s not about me.
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But why? As a grown-up I do understand what people tell me. There is no reason to sleep in your master bedroom when there is another bed to sleep in.
We for example travel with a rooftop tent on our car and an extra inflatable mattress just in case there is no second bedroom available and we would need a second place to sleep for one of us. We usually sleep in separate bedrooms, nothing wrong with that, we just sleep a lot better this way. When we do shorter sits, it’s not a problem. Several weeks are.
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I do not understand your comment Fatamorgana. I totally get she doesn’t want strangers sleeping in her bed. I don’t like sleeping in the master. I would rather have a twin in the guest room. Prefer it when they have a nice guest room bed, but I like to keep a small footprint when I stay, clean what I use. Don’t want to clean the master bath. Rather have the smaller bathroom. And there is less clutter usually in the guest bath. I am totally fine with a locked master. I prefer all the rooms I am not using to be closed. But then there are sitters who think a locked master is a good idea, and those that insulted that a THS sitter would snoop. Based on nothing, I am sure there are THS sitters that snoop. Haven’t we seen posts of sitters going through rooms and taking/using stuff? If I had used THS as an HO, I would definitely lock stuff up.
I’ve house sat for on here for 3 and privately sat. I can tell you that I NEVER go through people’s things.
I can understand the perspective being new, and in particular if friends ask all sorts of questions.
But still. If people assume I snoop in their knickers or steal or roll around in their bed I would think they were rather crazy. If people locked up rooms I would find that odd, and as a signal on how they viewed me. I’ve had a colleague that had a large amount of money stolen from her purse in our office many years ago - she was going to buy a pram for her new grandchild. I don’t go around suspecting my coworkers - then or now. I still leave my wallet in my office going to a meeting. A childhood friend stole my mothers vacation-money visiting us. I still leave my valuables in the living room when I’m visiting someone and need to use the lavatory. Occasionally things like that can happen, but overall we trust our coworkers, friends and relatives and we have reason to.
I will defend anyones right to have an opinion. If the opinion however is hateful of others, I would say you have the right to have that opinion but I’m not obliged to like it, I’m allowed to say you’re wrong. Ofc I wouldn’t mistreat the pets of such folks. More likely I would pity the poor pup. 
I can very much understand members not wanting to partner up with others with opinions that are hateful to them, that don’t want them to exist or to have freedom to express themselves. If someone hate you that would not be a good match, would it?
Otherwise people can believe what they want.
I love democracy and free speach. If one can’t take others having other opinions then one isn’t really a defender of that. If one doesn’t defend a conflicting opinion you are not pro-free speech, you are pro-privilege. The essence of democracy and free speach would be to stand up for others having another opinion.
If one would like to get a box and tidy away a treasured breakable, explicit books, handguns or a nice piece of Royal Doulton, why not. 
There is a tendency that I’ve seen forums of sitters takeing things personally as though every word of the welcome guide was wrtten for them as an individual. There are lots of things I would never do on a sit. I would never throw a party at the host’s house. Yet, I’ve seen welcome guides that say, “No parties.” I don’t take it personally. In fact, I had a homeowner who had written that kind of apologize to me because I saw it and kind of laughed, and she explained that they hated to write it down but they’d had a sitter who’d had multiple guests and thought it better to clearly state this in the welcome guide. I’ve seen people bristle at cleaning instruction that sound to them like common sense. The implication is not that homeowner believes you lack common sense, it’s that the homeowner may have had experience with some people in their home who didn’t have common sense.
Yes, this site is called Trustedhousesitters, but that doesn’t mean that homeowners and sitters should “trust” that they aligned and on the same page with everything. A locked room is not a signal of how they view you. They don’t know you. They may have had an experience with someone who didn’t respect their boundaries or didn’t know what was off-limits and rather than go through every past experience they’ve had ever, the simple solution is to lock away those area of the home you don’t need to be in.
Both sides are taking a leap of faith. If the homeowner didn’t trust you, they wouldn’t be inviting you into their home. Making the “house rules” clear for guests isn’t a personal attack.
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Omg @Marion. This. 
