I’m honestly shocked that so many people hate the limit.
I don’t know what it was like before, as I’m new, but allowing unlimited applications seems crazy.
As a sitter, I don’t want to see my application with a billion others, knowing it might get completely ignored, and a limit forces the HO to evaluate the applications before relisting to consider others.
As a HO I imagine it would also be more beneficial. All the popular sits would have thousands of applications, while others might have none. Did Ho overwhelmed, while others get completely ignored.
The best solution for adjusting to this new system is to set up search alerts. I’ve seen the same sits meeting my criteria pop up multiple times, I assume because they haven’t found someone they like seems like a red flag to me, this would be the HO who probably just ignores all the applications until they find some one they like, & gives up and settles at the last minute. That seems really disrespectful imo.
Or HOs with unreasonable demands, like; come sit for my 1 cat on Christmas and new years, but you have to come alone and promise not to go out on new years. like, no, you have to pay me overtime to be your holiday pet sitter at that point. Because it’s a job no longer a mutually beneficial exchange.
Hi @K8M and welcome.
The ‘old’ system also allowed for homeowners to pause their listing so they wouldn’t feel overwhelmed.
Setting up alerts won’t always allow you to apply for your desired sit as it may have already reached five applicants and automatically paused.
I have done many sits at Xmas and New Year out of choice and really enjoyed them. I personally wouldn’t consider going out for long periods in the evening especially at New Year if the pets were afraid of fireworks.
There is something out there for everyone. All we ask is for the freedom of choice and that applies to sitters and homeowners.
We are US based, but desire to apply for sits in Europe as well as the US. The ones we favorited are often paused (5 application rule) before we see them in the morning. This is a big issue for a site that purports to be international in scope. Setting up favorites and/or searches does not solve this problem - European sitters often have a six or seven hour head start on us.
As pointed out by others the HO used to be able to pause their ads.
We had suggested that Sitters be given a minimum of 24 hours to apply. This did not please THS because they needed more sitters to be successful. Rather than addressing sitter marketing issues - text, photos, application letters - the easiest method to insure experienced sitters would not gain advantage on the highly desirable sits was for THS to limit applications thus rewarding speed of response vs quality of application.
It is galling to us to routinely see sits we’d like to apply for be closed.
Perhaps as you get more experience and or decide to target sits in a far different time zone, you may have a different opinion.
Well, you would see “Reviewing” also for sits in the same timezone.
After you get up in the morning, you can still watch live all the sits that HOs in Europe post in the afternoon and in the evening. Att the same time as I here in France now.
I think you would see the situation differently than a person in the USA applying for a sit in England. We tend to go for the more desirable sits (dogs, owners and locations) and many if not most of those show up fairly early in the morning. If in Europe they are mostly closed by the time we see them. We are shocked if we are not selected based upon our profile, application letter, photos and video. And in these cases we always do an after action analysis to identify what we could have done better. In other words - marketing!
Have you targeted Taiwan or Australia for really desirable sits?
We don’t sit out of necessity but because we love dogs and adventure. And to be excluded from applying to any sit because THS has arbitrarily shut us out is a major problem to us.
Please don’t apply on a sit where you’ll leave cats and dogs on their own on NYE! it’s the noisiest night of the year and even if the HO doesn’t say anything, please stay with them or don’t pet sit on that specific night…the fact that it’s a holiday doesn’t make it less of a responsibility for a pet sitter. Pets won’t need us less, because they are aware it is “firework and champagne popping night”, so they’ll be more autonomous than the other 364 nights of the year. They’ll need us more than ever, because most of them will sense the energy in the air and they won’t have their family around.
It’s still a mutually beneficial exchange…you’re not paying anything for the most expensive night of the year (where you don’t even use the room anyways) and you get to share it with pups and or cats
Yes. Please do vote if you haven’t already. From previous discussions on both this and other forums It’s obvious this topic is important to many members.
Admin Notice: This UNOFFICIAL poll has been open for 6 days and will be permanently closed at 21.00 - 9.00 pm BST Monday October 2nd.
I also have to laugh a little bit at this justification for locking the poll’s thread… it was absurd from the beginning, but this current thread is effectively the comments section for that poll which is far less tidy than just keeping the poll thread open. Maybe next time they’ll leave poll comments open! Great job to all the members here who keep bumping this thread up to keep the poll alive.
Frankly astounded that you needed to paint that picture on a pet-sitting forum @Nadia111!
Please don’t apply on a sit where you’ll leave cats and dogs on their own on NYE! it’s the noisiest night of the year and even if the HO doesn’t say anything, please stay with them or don’t pet sit on that specific night…the fact that it’s a holiday doesn’t make it less of a responsibility for a pet sitter. Pets won’t need us less, because they are aware it is “firework and champagne popping night”, so they’ll be more autonomous than the other 364 nights of the year. They’ll need us more than ever, because most of them will sense the energy in the air and they won’t have their family around.
@Expat6 cross posting this to test a theory. @Angela_L@Carla I guess the results are pretty unanimous from forum members. And not bad numbers considering it got ‘moved’ so people couldn’t comment and keep it current. Are we likely to get any feedback? Even if it’s a ‘We don’t care what you lot think’, at least it would be some kind of acknowledgement.
Considering that there are just a fraction of THS members who are forum members and an even smaller number who are active and have voted in this poll, I think they are happy to have us sequestered in this echo chamber grousing about the policy. Sandboxed. We will end up accepting it or moving on because it seems they are pretty clear they are not going to change it unless it suits their business model.
seems like a red flag to me, this would be the HO who probably just ignores all the applications until they find some one they like, & gives up and settles at the last minute. That seems really disrespectful imo.
like, no, you have to pay me overtime to be your holiday pet sitter at that point. Because it’s a job no longer a mutually beneficial exchange.
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