Hi all, I usually don’t have an issue finding a sitter for my 2 cats over the holidays, but this year I haven’t gotten a single application and as it’s a little over a month away, I am starting to get nervous! The sit is fairly long so I don’t know if that is awkward timing for people, or if there is another reason, but I already have plans to visit my family, so I hope I can get my cats taken care of!
If have any suggestions for how I might be able to convince a sitter, I am all ears! Thanks for listening to my worries!
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Hello @alisonjane, before we can offer suggestions, you will need to follow the link below to add your listing so we can see it. You are competing with thousands of owners in a similar situation to you as the festive season is where demand for sitters is greatest but supply is lowest. Many sitters have been booked for months, especially where the sit maybe for a fairly long period as you say yours is. How to add a listing or profile link to your Forum profile!
Spotting your Austria location, then there seem approximately 150 open housesits in Schengen area for Christmas (plus 1,000 in UK).
Firstly, we encourage that you use magnifying glass “search” feature at top of THS Forum page - there have quite a lot of similar posts recently and many comments on those threads are generic in creation of high quality listing.
Second, for your listing then here’s a few brief thoughts.
Size. You can’t change this but one bedroom listing seems challenging for festive period. Many people seek to be social. And probably limits any crossover period with PP and HS in same property.
Listing text. Expand content to include more on pets (how long left, where sleep, any other atypical characteristics). Include details of local attractions, airports, transit, any festive treats.
Dates. Is there any flexility in your dates? If yes, state in listing. Travel over festive period can be expensive and/or tricky. Greater flexibility = more applicants.
Photos. Your cats are cute. But add/replace some with photos of other topics … property, neighbourhood, attractions.
Third, Christmas period is a time of extreme excess demand for housesitters. It would seem pragmatic to reflect on a Plan B in case not confirm housesitter.
@alisonjane What a lovely city you live in! Your past sitters have reviewed favourably which is great. Some tweaks I would suggest are removing the cat photos which double up; remove in your Introduction about it being a summer sit; clarify if the cats sleep on the bed with you as it looks like they do and not all sitters are comfortable with this; and complete the entire Amenities list. If I was you, I would look at your own listing from a sitter’s point of view and see how appealing it would be to you. Remember, you have much competition this time so it might pay you to improve your listing so it’s like a real estate promotion.
You can remove your dates and re-post them to make your listing New once you have hopefully taken notice of suggestions made by members.
As @Silversitters says, having a backup plan is vital.
I suggest that add a photo of the kitchen , the balcony - one of the view from the flat windows / balcony and the nearby town attractions / river ?
If there are events happening locally during this time add that to your listing .
(You listing talks about you going away for the summer so you need to rewrite that )
You have a lot of competition with over 4,100 hosts still looking for sitters over the Christmas period . There simply won’t be enough sitters available to cover all of these sits ( many sitters don’t sit over the festive season , others already have THS sits confirmed and others do paid sits on other platforms over this holiday time )
so be prepared with a Plan B .
I don’t know when you posted your listing, but another factor might simply be that it’s pretty late now to be looking for Christmas sits. I love sitting at Christmas, but would usually want to get a gig confirmed by the end of September.. I would guess that the pool of sitters still looking is pretty small. There’s nothing you can do about this, of course. But for future reference..
We haven’t found a Christmas sit yet as they all include new year too. We need to be somewhere on the 30th but so far no luck with just Christmas. What about splitting your sit in two.
As a sitter… there are way more listings for sits over Xmas
Maybe offer a few incentives.. like a not too dear meal at somewhere nearby.. just something to make your sit stand out from the rest.. I’m always amazed at reviews on booking sites where people get well excited about a welcome pack of a bottle of wine and a few food items.
Anything you feel you would be able to offer.. put it in your host blog and highlight the best pics of your place and local area.. it’s all a sitter can go off if they’ve not been before
I look at some hosts blogs and pass by the ones that have put a very small effort into their descriptions .. most are very good having said that.
Also even if you are a host.. look at others as a sitter would and glean info and ideas from that.
The amount of zero applications seems to get overwhelming, lots of our regulars are desperate to find sitters on the odd occasion that we can’t accommodate to sit,
This will only get worse by the new fees, a fair few people will simply not renew but deal with their regulars direct.
I think it is very unfair of a home owner to expect a free pet sitter to spend both Christmas AND New Year at their home. Do they think we don’t have a life of our own? As it happens I am currently on a Christmas sit 40 miles from home which ends tomorrow, and doing a separate one 8 miles from home over NEW YEAR ( a repeat sit, 5th time, I adore the little dog, and adores me) SO, at least I can meet with some of my friends.
But a whole festive holiday covering Christmas and New year, at someone’s home should be a PAID SIT, in my opinion.
I think a lot depends on the location/sit specifics. Last year I was happy to do a 2+ week sit that covered both Christmas and New Year’s but that was in Berlin – lots to do even over a holiday period. A sit at a more remote location might be harder to fill for both holidays, so the devil is in the details, really.
We’ve got sitters from December 19 through mid January at our house. They’re very happy to have the opportunity and we got a slew of applicants for these dates by numerous sitters who clearly didn’t see anything unfair about it.
I prefer to spend both christmas and new year at the same place. I do not want to be travelling immediately before or after (or worse on) christmas, boxing day or new years eve or day. So I look for 2 weeks as a minimum covering both holidays.
Actually for us its the opposite. We would not take a sit that covers only Christmas OR New Year. Many sitters, especially full time nomadic sitters like us, specifically look for longer sits over the Christmas period so we can settle in and relax over the festive period. We always choose Christmas sits that are a minimum of 3 weeks- usually between mid Dec & mid Jan. This also helps avoid the highest costs for both overnights & flights etc.
We’ve done Christmas sits every year since we joined THS, (only missing one year during Covid) - Australia (1st sit & current sit), Singapore (twice), Malaysia, Spain & UK. The current sit near Perth is 9 weeks long, with a car included, just 10 mins drive to a beautiful beach- a lovely opportunity to enjoy the Australian summer. We feel very lucky & blessed with this sit- its the perfect exchange- nothing at all unfair about that!
It really depends what you are looking for in a (Christmas) sit as to whether it feels fair or not.
@Lokstar, we agree.
We have completed housesits for each of the last three Christmas seasons. On each case, including this year, the housesit included both Christmas Day plus New Years Day (and sometimes many incremental days before or after). That said then we - likely as other experienced sitters - choose festive period sits carefully with an emphasis on great experience.
I absolutely love sits that cover Christmas and New Year! I have no family to speak of and can catch up with my friends at other times. Since I assume very few of us here have religious beliefs (which means Christmas has no special significance, other than the commercial and maybe traditional)……. Is it really so vital to spend the 31st December bouncing around with our friends?
I’d far rather spend the time with animals - and helping people out.
I don’t agree, depends on your circumstances. Christmas and New Year for us makes for a perfect sit. Especially not having to cope with the vagaries of transport and travel in between. If you are retired without commitments it can be an excellent choice absolutely no need for it to be a paid sit. Some of our best sits have been to cover these periods.
