The owner has ignored my requests to publish the TH Welcome Guide and has sent me her own version in a sprawling 11 page Google doc. I am wondering if having the doc on the TH site is better for me or can I just drop it and use her self created one?
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The Welcome Guide can be more than 11 pages of difficult to find information.
I much prefer a word document prepared by the Home Owner.
If there is still missing information then ask for more detail
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She wouldnât have been âignoringâ your requests to publish the TH guide, sheâs gave you the best information possible for her particular sit. Every place is different.
She knows what is best for her home and pets. Weâve had lots of pet owners give us their own guide, because the THS one is quite restricting for some sits, and it isnât a one-size-fits-all thing.
Typically, itâs when a home is larger-than-most, or they have more animals than most sits, or where things are a little more technical like with swimming pools, alarms, access etc.
As long as sheâs gave you a guide and it includes everything you need, then that is the most important thing.
She hasnât done anything wrong. THSâs guide just simply is not flexible enough for some information.
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As long as her document has all the information you need I donât see it as an issue. The THS Welcome Guide is notoriously clunky to complete.
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Our current home owner printed out the THS Welcome Guide and itâs 14 pages long! Very poorly formatted when printed out. So donât despair, be grateful for a (hopefully) more concise guide.
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As a sitter and homeowner, I much prefer a Word (or similar) document to the THS WG format. The THS version is very cumbersome to complete as a HO and difficult to navigate as a sitter.
I have a detailed Word document that I send to sitters before the sit. It is easier for me to create and change and the sitters can use the electronic version to search for key words if they are looking for something. Many other HOs do the same.
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As a HO, I found the THS Welcome Guide too narrow in scope and quite challenging if Iâm trying to provide much more than basic info. Plus, I havenât found a way to reshare my Welcone Guide with a confirmed sitter. I seem to be able to share it once and only once. Thatâs proven to be an issue when I needed to update stuff for a sitter who accepted a sit 6 months out.
We do have a detailed House Manual weâve assembled in pdf format in addition to filling out THSâs online Welcome Guide. With a copy of that in hand, you could clarify details from there. Seems thatâs the same result with your HOâs hard copy of random details. If the info you need is there, bobs your uncle. If not, followup.
If the host were to use the THS welcome guide format, thereâs nothing stopping them from simply pasting in their current doc in chunks. I donât see how youâd end up with a better result.
Are you saying that you canât do the sit because 11 pages is too much to read? Or is the hostâs doc incoherent?
To me, getting the info is the key thing. It doesnât matter from my POV what format or platform itâs shared in, because I can read and parse info as needed. If thatâs a challenge for you, you might consider pasting the hostâs doc into ChatGPT and having it restructure the info so you can better understand it.
You can update your welcome guide on THS and it will automatically let the sitter know that itâs been updated â the sitter gets automatic notification from THS. No need to reshare. At least thatâs how Iâve experienced it as a sitter.
Itâs annoying if the guide is updated multiple times, because THS doesnât indicate where the changes are, so you have to read the whole guide over to avoid missing anything, especially theoretically in case you end up with a creepy host who tries to hide info.
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Brilliant. No way Iâve been able to see that functionality exists. Good to know.
Unfortunately, Iâve had to periodically update my Welcome Guide more than a few times. When we first got started on THS, I donât recall whether we had confirmed sitters but, if so, they probably were annoyed by the dozen or so updates we made as we refined and detailed the Welcome Guide. We settled down with the updates for awhile until I joined this forum and began reading sitter perspectives on what Welcome Guide information they felt was important. Iâm a bit chagrined to learn that confirmed sitters were being pestered by notifications by my numerous but minor tweaks. Good to know about the automatic notifications.
There are creepy hosts who try to hide information? Maybe youâd have found my updates creepy when I clarified (not hide) information about our outdoor cameras. Would you find it creepy if I added a note that our robotic vacuum cleaner uses a camera to update us on obstacles it encounters?
Yes, unfortunately, there are creepy hosts whoâve gone back and added to their welcome guides stuff that they clearly shouldâve divulged about their pets at the outset, for example. A sitter who used to post frequently mentioned for example that he had gone back into the guide and was lucky to catch such. It probably was before THS added the auto-notifications, because he had gone back to review something and was surprised by the change. This is why itâs a good idea (among other reasons) for sitters to take screen grabs of welcome guides, so they have proof if a host is trying to pull something. Most updates will be innocuous, but there are bad hosts (just like there are bad sitters) in the ecosystem.
@zanasu1, having now completed 50 housesit then weâve received plentiful Welcome Guides. They vary dramatically in rigour, completeness, effort and format. Some are comprehensive business documents with all info - kudos to such heros! Some are bare minimal. And some donât exist.
Clearly there is a wrong approach ⌠no WG; misleading WG; missing key information.
But there are ample intermediary levels that are subjective. How much info on pets? How much info on property?
And there is above-and-beyond content (kudo again to the heros!) ⌠details of local amenities, shops, cafes, restaurants, transit; details/maps of routes that dog(s) like to walk; any content intended to enhance housesitter experience.
We do not consider length of WG as proxy for quality. Some short WG have been fabulous and some long WG have been poor.
No doubt there are bad eggs on both sides. Your single second hand, dated example of a (maybe) creepy host reinforces my sense that the creeps are outliers. Maybe your idea of a creepy host is someone like me given that I periodically âsneakâ info into the Welcome Guide. Or, extending the benefit of a doubt, maybe âsneakyâ hosts are simply updating information as it occurs to them or changes.
To me, of course theyâre outliers. Otherwise, who would be sitting if creepy hosts were the majority. And how would THS manage to get people to renew, whether as hosts or sitters, if most of their experiences involved bad eggs. Generally, though, no one wants to get stuck with even one bad egg, whether as sitters or hosts.
They havenât âignoredâ your request. They sent you an 11 page document. The THS welcome guide is a âsprawlingâ document that is hard to edit and has many sections that might not apply to many homes.
Read the document that was sent. If something doesnât make sense or is not understandable than ask for a video chat to go over it and ask questions.
Many homeowners donât use the âofficialâ welcome guide.
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Just wondering if youâre you a new sitter ?
While a Welcome Guide is wonderful, many pet owners donât use that template and create their own version as it better serves their needs.
As long as you have a WRITTEN document which contains all of the necessary info , youâre good.
Youâre not being ignored if theyâre communicating and if theyâve provided you with the info prior to the sit.
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Well done for regularly updating the information.
The problem though for a sitter is that we receive notifications that it has been updated but we donât know what has changed.
Once I receive the WG I make some brief notes for easy reading, so I then have to reread the WG and compare every part to see what has changed.
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Her Google doc is her welcome guide. Just make sure it has all the info you need and ask for clarification. The TH welcome guide isnât super great anyways
Drop it into Google notebook, then you can ask for an overview or ask specific questions like using your own personal gpt. Iâve used it for my current sit and it works well.
Whichever format Iâm provided with, I usually copy the content & reformat / re-sequence into something that works for me.