Hello All,
I recently applied for a sit in the UK and I am from Oregon. The owner turned me down without giving me a reason (I am fine with that). My question is: I noticed there are 3000+ house and pet sitters in the UK on this site. Will this make it next to impossible to get a housesit in the UK as I am from the USA and most HO probably prefer a person from the UK? I can understand this as it would probably be less worry for them due to travel, but just wondering how challenging this might prove for me. Thank you!
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Hi @jakkij
Thatâs very disappointing for you and a shame you werenât given a reason, but donât assume itâs because youâre from the US as it may simply be that they already had someone else in mind, although they should have said so.
Iâm from the UK and currently housesitting and travelling in New Zealand for the 2nd time - first time was before the pandemic. I did get a turn down but they said they preferred someone from NZ in case of problems with Covid, just before NZ removed all restrictions.
Before leaving the UK I told owners in my applications when I was flying to NZ and got some sits confirmed. While in New Zealand Iâve got more sits confirmed, also 2 sits so far in Australia for next June - August.
If you didnât before then just make sure in your applications to emphasise when youâll be travelling to the UK, for how long, if youâve been there before, how much you like the country etc
Good luck! Iâve sat for a lot of owners in the UK who welcome international sitters.
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Hi there @jakkij Iâm resisting from giggling but smiling. I am from the US and have had numerous and I mean numerous sits in the UK since 2018. Donât tell anyone but One could say I lived there pet sitting, I mean I was very much and happily alive.
I have now moved on and I have numerous invites to return so go get âem!
The sea is full and there is plenty for everyone.
Have fun!
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There are lots of reasons why you were turned down, and they donât have to necessarily mean you werenât a good candidate. Donât take it personally - just keep applying. IMO, getting sits in the UK are probably the easiest, even for people from out of the country, simply because there are so many.
Be sure to tell the hosts what your overall plan is when you apply so they feel more confident about an overseas sitter. (We always tell them we are arriving in the country at least 3 days before the sit starts, and that our plan is to have a string of sits with a few days off between each one.)
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I think some home hosts like to have foreign sitters so in some instances it may work to your advantage. There will always be those nervous that the logistics may mean that you might not make it - especially since the opening and closing of borders with almost no notice that we have all experienced over the last couple of years.
We are from the UK and get accepted for a relatively high number of sits that we apply for. I do notice that we get more rejections when applying for sits overseas - but perseverance pays off so donât stop sending out those applications.
We recently attended a âmeet upâ in London where, via this group, any sitters currently sitting in and around the area were invited to join us for a social afternoon. I think 14 turned up and at least half ( maybe more?) were from overseas
Good Luck!
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Not really an answer to the question, but on the topic of sits in the UK, weâve noticed it seems like a majority say sitters require a car. That unfortunately would disqualify most foreign sitters. It would be nice to be able to filter for that when searching for sits.
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Most? Not totally sure I would agree. We always rent a car when we travel and I suspect other sitters do as well. It might disqualify âsomeâ sitters.
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Thank you Colin! I will keep trying!
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I think I made it clear we would have a car but I will make sure I clearly STATE that in upcoming applications. Thank you.
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Hi @jakkij, I hope you donât get discouraged! Iâm also in the US and I joined THS in September. I took the advice of many on this forum and started with short-term local sits, and then did an out-of-state sit that required flying.
Those local/U.S. experiences and reviews were key to helping me land a 2-week sit in London this spring. Iâm over the moon!! And while I originally thought of the local sits as steppingstones, Iâm loving them so much that I plan to continue doing them as well as pursuing sits further away.
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Thank you for responding LovingLife. I thought the same thing. I started with local sits to get a âresumeâ of five star reviews (which happened). I am on the same âplanâ as you and will continue to do local sits to build up my reviews/references which hopefully will help me out with international sits. Thank you for the encouragement. I will just keep trying. It was only one âturn downâ so âonwardâ! 
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Welcome @jakkij! My cousin Lance and his wife Jonelle are pet lovers in Oregon City.
So much great feedback. I just wanted to note that the link to your sitter profile isnât right; it opens to the userâs profile, not yours. I also made that mistake at first.
The instructions to fix your link are here:
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@jakkij Our very first Sit was an overseas one! We are UK/German and we were in Bali at the time and applied for a Christmas sit in Perth, Australia. Our hosts were also first timers and were flying to India to get married! So we all took the risk of relying on each other and our flight schedules and it all went very smoothly. We arrived in Australia a few days before- to be on the safe side.
Re- UK sits- we just did a 5 month stint in the UK- from May till end of October- 31 sits back to back! We booked the first 20 from Germany & Switzerland- whilst on other sits- and we told all the hosts we were embarking on a UK housesitting tour - starting in May- and would love to include them in it! This really worked and we got practically every sit we applied for and continued booking more after arrival.
Many of our hosts had had overseas sitters and very much enjoyed having them and some had return overseas sitters booked in. There are so many Sits in the UK- i think you will have no problem getting a few lined up. Its a great opportunity to build up your reviews quickly too!
Good luck!
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Just keep applying. We from Montana and just started sitting in September and our first 4 sits were in the UK. Weâre on # 6 of 13 scheduled sits so far. While I imagine some people would be hesitant to select international sitters, I think most are perfectly fine with it.
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Weâre full time sitters and 70% of our sits are international. Weâre also a multi cultural husband wife pairing who sit in my husbandâs home country (Turkey) but not mine (UK). So far all HOs seem to like that weâre living this colourful and open life, it hasnât been a blocker at all. The non response is likely to be the HOs general style not because youâre abroad. And if it is that then itâs not a fit anyway. Onwards & upwards
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This is such a GREAT community! I really appreciate all your words of wisdom and support. I was getting discouraged but your input has really turned that around. Thank you!
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Donât get discouraged. I live in Canada, but Iâve only done two sits here. One local to get my first review, and another in Toronto because it worked for dates I wanted to be there anyway. Most of my sits have been in the UK. Good luck!
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We lived in Australia and started our housesitting adventures there. We got nearly every sit we applied for in Australia, but then, when we started applying for UK sits, we were often rejected, even though I would explain our tour plans etc. in the same way I did in Australia. It was then that I realised that there was a distinct difference in communication styles between the Australians and the British. The Australians are more informal, chatty in the way they write, whereas the British are sometimes (big surprise) more reservedâŚmaybe look into your style too and try too adapt it?
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Hi @jakkij we are Australian sitters and are 2 weeks into 4.5 months sitting full time in the UK. It took several rejections before we got our first UK sit. Once we booked our flights we could say âwe have booked our flights and have xx sits confirmed alreadyâ that then got us more confirmed sits. We write a long detailed application and continually get positive feedback about that from owners. Even though we repeat some of the information in our profile owners say they love how all our information is in the application as it allows them to easily make a decision about us as prospective sitters. We treated it like a job application (even though itâs not a job). As a home owner as well, we quickly bypassed brief applications from sitters for our 5 month sit. You have to remember that your application is the first time people get to know you so first impressions count. Donât rely on them reading your profile as many donât. Also change the location in your profile to the location you want to sit e.g. London UK. Some owners search for sitters by their location and send invitations.
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