As I prepare for my first sitter to arrive, I’m curious as to how owners prepare their home for sitters, especially regarding personal stuff. For example, do you remove pictures of your children? What about certain books? And no, I’m not talking items that would be clearly no-nos or used shampoo, but I have a copy of a Karl Marx book, because I was interested in economics at one time. If you are a particular religion, do you remove any religious items, such as the mezuzah, pictures of the Pope, or a buddha figure? Yes, this should be part of the vetting process, but I’m a newbie, so I’m just asking.
From the sits I’ve done, no one’s removing items like that. I see folks’ wedding photos, religious icons or what have you. And no one’s ever vetted me on my beliefs. If they did, I’d think them odd and avoid them.
The more important things to sitters typically:
• Remove clutter so we’ll have room to put our stuff, especially if it’s a longer sit.
• Put away valuables, sentimental items and such that would be expensive or hard to replace.
• Clear out fridge and freezer space and leave it clean, because we’re humans and eat. Plus, it’s inhospitable to have a sitter have to clean (and in some cases to have to sanitize) stuff like spills and to have to throw out old food. Some have experienced horrors like moldy, grimy fridges, which is a clear sign of a host who’s gross and disrespectful.
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When we have a sitter stay at the family home we might put away important documents and such for everyone’s comfort but not photos or any iconography. If someone was bothered by that the life of a sitter probably isn’t for them and they might enjoy a no personality 3-4 star chain hotel better. As a sitter the only thing I routinely hide away or move during my stay (and of course move back when I go) are ticking clocks in the space im supposed to be sleeping - can’t stand that personally.
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Hi @MC81 we only put away personal identity/financial items.
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This isn’t airbnb. I could see packing up the personal stuff for a 2 or 3 month sit maybe, but if you are gone a couple a couple of weeks, you don’t need to upend your home. Just clean it. Regarding books, religious items etc, I’d honestly say do not hide them unless it’s a p*rn stash or something (asterick because of weird limitations on this forum). If it’s normal stuff you’d have for guests and visitors then it stays.
If you have concerns that there is something that may be offensive to a particular sitter, then I’d say, sure use your judgement or even discuss with the sitter. But I can’t emphasize this enough and I believe a perusal of this forum will bear me out – a clean uncluttered home, and maybe a little storage space will make your sitter very happy.
If you have some rooms that your sitter won’t need to go in, you can keep them closed. You can keep them open if the pets might want to wander in but make it clear to the sitter that there is nothing “of interest” in those rooms, and they might need to be hoovered on occassion but otherwise not disrupted.
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Our current sit, I doubt any books were put away! It makes for interesting browsing, I’m already halfway through a second book! And they have loads of art and photos too. A sitter might have a quick look at the photos, but remember, we don’t know the people in the photos, so it’s just not very interesting.
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I’m a sitter. Nothing like that gets removed. It’s not a holiday let. The sitter will take you for who you are, they personally choose you and your pets (it wasn’t just you that did the picking). So leave the photos, leave the books, leave the buddha. Plus it’s lovely looking at other peoples bookshelves and reading something that we wouldn’t have necessarily purchased ourselves.
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Not quite sure what you mean by “this should be part of the vetting process”. I have never been asked about my religion or lack of, my politics or other views. Quite honestly if these things were asked I would politely decline the sit. As for pictures, books, icons etc I have never sat where these have been cleared away. Whilst I would not expect personal financial information to be out on view I have been asked to open certain mail on a long sit and send a scan of the contents to the host in case it was something they needed to deal with during the 3 months they were away.
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I have been on a sit where the screen saver of their smart tv showed the photo album of the family. Just the ordinary stuff of travel and children growing up, but it felt a bit private that I that I would be seeing it.
My most recent sits have included digital photo frames that rotate images nonstop, so I see many family and friends photos.
Doesn’t bother me, maybe because I’m used to social media. Friends often post photos of their friends and family, most of whom I’ll never meet.
Thanks everyone. Your comments do reflect my own views, but nice to have them confirmed. My first AirBnB accommodations were people’s homes and their artwork, etc., was around–no financial documents, but photos of family perhaps.
This is my first time having a sitter from THS, and I want to make sure she has a great time in my home. It will be clean, space will be available for food and clothing, and plenty of supplies. Thanks again for the help!
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As a sitter, I can say that it doesn’t bother me, I even like it when the house looks like it belongs to someone. I like it because it gives me a feeling of home when not everything is put away. It just has to be neat and tidy and there has to be space to store our own things. A place in the bathroom, a chest of drawers. … I love reading and when I see an interesting book, I always ask if I can read it. What I personally find a bit difficult is when homeowners leave food in the fridge and say you can use it up if you want. I’d rather have nothing in the fridge than something I’m disgusted by and then have to throw away. As a homeowner, I would always ask my sitters if they are vegetarian or if they have a problem with alcohol being left around the house. After all, there are one or two sitters with alcohol problems who might feel triggered, even if they are no longer active drinkers.
It’s their home. What do you expect?
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Just received an alert from another sitting platform and a French host mentions their DVDs and books as a feature of the sit — mainly history and novels.
I did not really mind, but as an answer to @MC81 it might be something that I could switch off if I was the homeowner. Such a screensaver is attracting much more attention than a wall of framed pictures.
Nope, the house is the house… as is. And “as is” means it’s pretty darn clean and tidy. Our sitters stay in our guest room and they have a good part of a closet with a bunch of hangers, a very large drawer, and a luggage stand. With the exception of some formal wear in a portion of that closet, there’s really nothing “personal” in there. I leave the drawers in their bathroom empty so they have room to store their toiletries. Honestly, the guest room and guest bath are pretty much ready to go at any time, so no prep is needed except the usual cleaning. The photos, religious items and such in the rest of the house stay where they are, and we tell our sitters they’re welcome to read any of the books (it’s a diverse collection including religious, political, fiction, sci-fi and more, and they can just ignore any that don’t appeal to them). We don’t really have anything all that valuable sitting around, unless I guess you consider the replacement value of the furniture. I do some prep in the kitchen though, to ensure the sitters have pantry space, refrigerator space and freezer space.
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TBH I dont even notice the HO photos and personal items. Even if I pick something up to clean under it Im not really paying close attention to it any more than to be careful with it.
My work has involved going into countless homes and closets and once youve seen one you’ve seen them all and they all just blend into eachother.
Unless someone has an unusual, quirkey or artistic style I admire, its all pretty much the background for the adorable cats!!!
We have a file drawer in kitchen with info like credit card #, various invoices and receipts, Medicare #s, etc. I put in a box and into our master bedroom. I also scoop up all personal bath toiletries into a box and put into bedroom, along with any personal irreplaceable items I wouldn’t want broken. We lock the bedroom door ( which also keeps my messy closet hidden!).
Easy!
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I have a one-bedroom apartment. Sitters sleep in my bed. I just basically tell them in my videos and non-remote tours if they happen, what is “of no interest” to them. This includes stuff like our dressers, the contents of nighttable drawers and the bedroom closets. I make the assumption of trust that they will not be rumaged through or open. We have an ikea cube on tope of an ikea dresser. I leave several cubes open for sitters to store stuff and room in the hallway coat closet to hang stuff. I invite them to rummage around and acquaint themselves with the contents of kitchen cabinets and shelves as they may not be organized perfectly.
I often wind up throwing a lot of stuff in my closet. If a sitter opened it, it might be like a scene from some show. Maybe this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dmeWE-qfMo
This is just a given. Houses have stuff. Homeowners are now rated on cleanliness of their homes, not design, decorations, etc. It’s not airbnb.
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