Hey there
10 years experience with THS; first time had this problem!
4 day sit in early November- this sit is a bridge between two longer sits.
A) Owner confirmed me with no video chat or dialogue.
B) Sit was confirmed about 4 months ago.
C) Reached out to owner a few times to move to WhatsApp ~ she didn’t want to and only wanted to communicate through emails with THS.
D) Sent a few emails ( through THS) to chat about upcoming sit : time of arrival et. Etc and no no response.
Has been 4 days.
Do I cancel sit and get another bridge sit??
I can’t apply for another sit until I cancel this one….
What to do?
You can’t apply for other sits without this one being canceled — it’s technologically not possible, unless you don’t use THS.
For this, reach out to membership services and ask them to contact the host or cancel. Support@trustedhousesitters.com. Or use the chatbot and ask to speak to a human. Or check the site or app for the emergency number if you’re in a rush.
What is your intuition telling you? Only you can determine whether to cancel or continue. However, there’s also only so much you can do to get blood out of a stone, and it seems you’ve exhausted every available possibility.
I would suggest giving yourself a timeline and sticking to it, i.e. ‘If they don’t respond by X date, I will cancel’. Then, if the HO does eventually get back to you, you can say ‘I waited for X days and received no response, so had to proceed with other plans’. A timeline that you feel is reasonable for allowing enough time for the host to communicate, given she may be away or busy. Arguably, this has already passed! You can’t wait around for uncommunicative people indefinitely and, frankly, you need to know what’s happening.
Hi @LauraLeeG, sorry to hear you’re feeling caught. We had this exact situation not too long ago. We were confirmed 2 months before the sit and a month out I started asking for WG, sent questions, asked for contact details, checked to see if they were Ok, etc, and nothing. I gave them a fortnight, then contacted Membership Services to ask them to cancel from their end. They emailed the HO to ask if they were still wanting to go ahead with the sit. After 3 days of no response from the HO, support services cancelled the sit for us. A couple of days later, the HO contacted us quite upset but we said given the lack of communication, we didn’t have the confidence to go ahead. It was a luxurious property and I think the HO thought that sitters would overlook poor behaviour. Good luck with how you go!
So the pet parent didn’t let you know her phone number?
The sit is still a way off but I understand it’s important to be confident of sit continuity. Trusted T&Cs state that response to communications should be made within 72 hours, so clearly that timeframe has already passed and you are now within your rights to request a cancellation (if you so wish).
I reckon you could either ask MS to reach out to this pet parent or else you could contact them via chat, ask to ‘speak to agent please’ (do this twice, without first outlining your need for contact, or you’ll simply be directed to auto responses), then tell them you’ve had no response from the pet parent in 4 days so you want to cancel. Send screenshots of the messages or else ask the agent to refer to the THS message thread to verify this. They might urge you to continue and establish contact with the pet parent but the decision is ultimately yours at this stage, so if you’d feel more confident in cancelling so that you can subsequently apply for other sits, be firm on this. The agent can cancel the sit there and then, which will free you from this concern.
Thanks for the feedback!
Contacted member services, and coincidentally owner canceled the sit.
So I am now scrambling!!! To bridge the few days!
Oh well!
Yeah- I just feel bad if she is “ busy” and not as persnickety as I am about communication.
Then I cancel and she gets angry with me….
Perhaps I will reach out to admin…