I am very concerned that a few members have suggested increasing membership fees to overcome this new change.
You have stated that there are no announcements about changing fees but members are now putting this idea into THS’s mind.
I do not consider my membership as joint as it is just me that has been id verified and the invoice is in my name alone.
I would therefore want to add my voice that fees must not be increased for any member sitting with one other.
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@Knowmad Thank you for your reply. Apologies I noticed that I missed the first sentence of that section, here it is in full for further clarification:
I will ensure I am able to travel to the sit and am available for all required dates
before applying for a sit. Once the sit has been confirmed, I will not cancel my
sit unless there are extraordinary circumstances. Once on a sit, I will never arrive
later or leave earlier than the agreed dates.
If a sitter leaves a sit early, to go to another sit as the dates overlap by a few days, then that is outside of the Code of Conduct. If they confirm a sit knowing that they won’t be able to complete all of the dates then that is also outside of the Code of Conduct.
Members understanding the Code of Conduct is super important so I will pass your feedback about wording, not explicitly stating overlapping sits to the team. Thank you
Agreed. @Carla That’s a very generous interpretation of that sentence to say that it forbids overlapping sits. We do overlapping sits and never once has any pet been left uncared for. Nor has any sit been abandoned early.
If THS is standing on that as the reasoning, it feels disingenuous at best. It feels like a policy change for other reasons and then a search for some language in the t&cs to justify it. If you are truly working towards more credibility and openness, that not the way to do it.
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This software tweak is a nightmare…not been properly thought through…lots of bad ramifications as listed above
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@Carla I understand the statement. As I said before, the key words are “agreed upon” dates. Every overlap has been agreed upon by all parties involved. And it’s “we” not “I” in our case. We split up and cover the sits. This has nothing to do with wording, but more to do with common sense. And we take our responsibilities “super” seriously!
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But those “agreed dates” are not always the officially confirmed dates registered in the THS system. For example, I was happy to leave a day early when the most recent HO returned a bit earlier than they first planned. I was there to hand over the pets and the keys.
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Holy cats!
I did not see this coming. I noticed that new warning that started popping up, about a week ago, when applying for overlapping sits but didn’t see them stomping on our ability to divide-and-conquer.
We too sit full time and occasionally have a day or two of overlap in order to avoid unnecessary gaps.
Until today I’ve never considered doubling up with another website/membership but I guess that the time has come.
Perhaps all of the evangelising we do on the part of TH (and we’ve done a LOT) should be tempered as well if they’re intent on implementing policies that will leave more pet owners without a sitter during times of high demand.
Disclaimer: I’m having a bad day with the powers that be at TH and might be getting a little snippy…
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Five bucks says that many people who might have gone from sit to sit are now going to be pressuring HOs into giving them additional nights of lodging/paying for lodging on their behalf.
It makes very little sense from a PR standpoint, as the people out there doing the evangelizing on behalf of THS tend to be the digital nomads and heavy users of social media.
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I am completely with you! It’s just that I fear that this will happen.
Colin,
I absolutely agree with everything you’ve written.
We also overlap sits with no issues to anyone, with 70 odd 5🌟 reviews to reflect that.
THS is bringing these problems on itself by not stressing the important responsibility of house sitting in their marketing, and instead focusing on the free accommodation angle to up membership sales. I’m getting more and more frustrated, and whereas before I’d be keen to promote THS i’m now just annoyed by them!
THS please scrap this rule for couples who are, and have been overlapping sits without any issues at all. As a vet i think i’m also qualified to say that from the animals point of view!
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Some people had expected this: Overlapping dates pop-up - #25 by systaran
That is the earlier thread, wher @Ben-ProductManager was made aware of the problems.
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This feels like another example of how the product team is introducing changes that don’t address the actual issues that site users have, but manage to create new problems that didn’t previously exist.
BECAUSE I READ THE FORUM, I already knew that sometimes couples split up so one person can complete a sit, while the other person moves to a new sit. I also knew FROM THE FORUM that sometimes HOs get upset about this,especially because only one person is the primary on accounts and is ID checked/background checked, and the other person isn’t. Not allowing couples to do overlapping sits is one solution, but it makes membership less valuable to couples, and it creates more problems for HOs when there is a sitter shortage.
The trust factor with couples could be easily resolved by adding a small extra fee to cover background/ID check to a second person who regularly sits with someone else. In the case where both people are vetted, HOs wouldn’t have much reason to object if one person was leaving early to go to a sit that starts a few days before another sit ends. Mostly this is a win for everyone as THS currently needs more sitters, so allowing couples to occasionally do overlaps helps fill sits and keeps members happy.
It would also make sense, however, to have THS send out an alert automatically about these overlapping dates to affected HOs. Not a stop that prevents them, but a warning that once the sitter overrides and confirms an overlapping date, BOTH HOs will be notified. In that way, paired sitters will be encouraged to let the HOs know what is happening – transparency – so that if the HO has any objection to the couple turning into a solo for a few days (large hard to handle dogs for example) it is discussed and agreed on. Potential issues are solved before they are issues.
Alerting HOs when this happens will PREVENT a separate issue mentioned in the forums. That issue is when sitters (mostly solo sitters) try to evade rules by literally putting themselves in two places at once. For example: Mary is catsitting in a city where she needs to be for a three month internship. There is another sit – a dog sit – nearby that will get her through the end of her internship. It starts a few days before her catsit ends. They are close enough to each other that Mary decides to do the wrong thing and take the dogsit, knowing she’ll have time to drop in twice a day and feed and check in on the cat. It is possible that the catparent would be okay with this and will trust that Mary will be around enough on those last days to fulfill her obligations, and not have an issue with this. It is also possible they would be livid. In either case, if there was an automatic alert to both HOs, they will both be able to contact Mary and find out what is going on and okay it or say “Nope. Not what we agreed to!” And Mary would be encouraged to let the HOs know what is happening before they receive an alert.
Furthermore, what the product team should be focusing on, is not only preventing sitters trying to be in two places at once, but the more prevalent issue of sitters canceling a sit to take a “better” sit. That’s where improving the tech would be effective. There are some bad actors who will cancel sits casually in order to take another sit. Currently, cancellations are only tracked when someone specifically complains. Asking members to police each other is a big ask, but if THS automatically tracked cancellations and got data about them, they’d prevent serial cancellers from gaming the system.
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Actually I don’t understand why couples should suddenly pay more when it has been working just fine for them previously?
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Why not apply this policy only to sitters with less than 10 or 15 reviews? Or only to sitters with a rating of less than 4 or 3.5 stars? this would make an end to stranded pets, but would keep the sitters that do an excellent job safe.
I fully get the idea of this, but why “punish” all of us?
Many times we change dates with the homeowners after confirming, and we can start looking for other sits right away.
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I would like to know how this impacts sits that finish and start on the same day? Have one later all confirmed but I finish in the afternoon and then drive straight to another sit. Also this year I have had a couple of sits that look like I have double booked for a few days but they haven’t, this is due to a homeowner changing their dates prior to my confiormation but then felt too complkicated to alter on the site, so have just left it showing the original dates.
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I have a combined membership, and my spouse sometimes comes with me on sits. I don’t want to pay more. However, I have seen several threads started by pet parents who are shocked that the both parties aren’t vetted. It also isn’t clear to me with the insurance (already a murky area) how it works if the unvetted half is alone when some damage occurred. As a homeowner, I usually ask for a linkedin or something for the unvetted half, and am less likely to take a chance on a couple without a lot of site experience than a solo sitter without a lot of site experience.
The unvetted person is just added as “accompanying.” I could see the need to charge a small amount more to run or keep current id checks or US background checks, and make sure both people are “equally” sitters. I think this would frankly make HOs feel less reluctant to take on couples, so the small added fee would make it easier for couples to get sits. It’s not something for nothing.
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This isn’t really about people slightly overlapping sits or ‘accidentally’ double-booking. That’s how they have worded it but I believe it is really only about people applying for a sit and then looking for something better, getting it, and then cancelling the first one. If they can prevent you from applying for the better sit this problem goes away instantly.
What would cause this kind of behaviour and for it to be a new problem that now needs fixing? Maybe the 5 application limit is resulting in people applying for anything available and then continuing to shop for what they would prefer.
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Why not just create separate accounts? If your full time and doing separate sits, it seems it would be well worth it to avoid the headaches
I’d like to know what’s going to be done to make it quick and easy for HOs to change dates in the system. While date changes happen all the time (50% of my sits so far), it hasn’t been an issue since both sides were able to manage our own schedules. However, now when dates are changed, I am unable to apply to other sits for those dates. Given the time sensitive nature of applying for sits, sitters miss out on sits while waiting until when/if the HO changes the dates. We could easily be waiting for days for the HO to have time to figure out how to change the dates and that’s if they bother with it all.
This change was clearly made without thinking through the cascading consequences. Now, there are major issues that need to be resolved quickly because sitters are being prevented from applying to sits when there is no overlap.
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That might be a good option for a couple who do lots of seperate sits. To allow for short overlaps (which helps everyone) and the occasional solo sit, a joint membership option would seem to be a very sensible solution.