Owners without reviews from previous sitters - a concern?

Owner Questions, Advice & Chat
62

I just did a search for this topic as I’m
Looking at a sit with 6~7 previous sits and no reviews. Which is super strange. (It could potentially be a glitch)
Anyway I followed one of the responses lead to look up sitters and their reviews from this particular owner. The 3 reviews I saw were extremely favourable and there was one reply to a review from the sitter saying how awesome the owners were and lovely the house was.
So my takeaway is that possibly the last sit or two had issues but all in all the couple seem nice. I’ve got a call with them and I’ll go from there.
Great forum btw!

2 Likes
63

Did the previous sitters for the one you’re considering leave reviews for other HOs?
Something to consider. Seems hinky

64

It wouldn’t really raise much in terms of red flags for me:

  1. I’ve never had an HO yet requesting a review. I’m the one who sometimes has to ask them for a review. I’ve always felt that HO are less interested in collecting reviews than we sitters are, since after all… the HO is in the driving seat. So esp in a popular location they’re going to have enough sitters to apply anyway. The other way around is more challenging (a sitter with no reviews being successful)
  2. I’m a single female sitter. But HOs are not there when I sit for them, so I don’t see a safety issue
65

I think most HOs and even sitters who don’t read the forum AND THAT’S THE VAST MAJORITY, don’t realize that some sitters look at the feedback and take it seriously. Many HOs don’t want to pester sitters. Many HOs once back from a trip will leave their review and not even bother checking their feedback. I could definately see avoiding a sit where a lot of sitters haven’t left any feedback, especially if there is something else that’s giving you reason to check your gut, but I think it’s more important to check the existing feedback, see if there is anything you that’s slipping in between the lines, and if they have feedback for most of the sits, your good to apply. IMO, there is a lot of review inflation on both ends here, so once you are being considered for a sit, have a face to face chat with the HO and ask the tough questions, one of which could include questions like: “Have you ever gotten feedback from a sitter that changed the way you did something?”