We are considering inviting a first time sitter. We really liked her and she has a good endorsement from a friend of her family.
Does anyone have any advice about ways to increase our security?
I am also interested in what people do if the sitter cancels shortly before the sit begins.
In advance, thank you for any and all thoughts.
Andrew
Easiest thing - make sure youâve both read and understood the T&Cs
We would look into her living situation. Does she have her own place and is she willing to give you a video tour. If her place meets your housekeeping standards, thatâs reassuring. More importantly, if she doesnât, fair warning.
If she lives close, that would give us additional pause.
Sitters starting out are generally adviced to seek nearby sits to get reviews. I think many sitters will try to get 5* reviews for their first sits to get a good foundation for their future sits. Best to ask, at least.
It would be highly unusual to request a video tour of a sitterâs home, more likely the sitter requests a tour of the ownerâs home to ensure it is clean and comfortable.
Agreed. I wouldnât give a pet owner a tour of my home. I would think it very odd if requested.
As an owner with a clean and comfortable home, asking a sitter without prior reviews for a video tour of their current living situation is the only way we have any factual assurance the home will be clean and comfortable on our return.
For sitters with lots of good reviews, such a tour isnât necessary. But the OP requested advice for a sitter with no reviews. Thatâs my advice.
A video tour of a home during the application process would eliminate fully 50% of the sitter disasters recently shared in this forum. Iâve wondered for awhile why most sitters donât make such a request. Weâve had a few ask to see the house during our video call and, frankly, that reflected well on them to us.
Thatâs great advice. Iâve offered it myself. But first time sitters that are local are trickier and warrant greater care.
The thousands of sitters here all had a first sit on Trusted Housesitters because a PP had a gut feeling it would work out and it did! I would want to know their experiences with dogs (if your sit was with a dog.). Did she do sits for friend or family. Did she have dogs as an adult. Does she truly sound like she is really an animal lover wanting to spend time with your dog or does she sound like someone who is looking for a free place to stay.
Some sitter on here took a chance with you when you had no reviews, so pay it forward and do the same. Just write a very detailed WG detailing what you expect from the sitter in terms of care for the pet and home. Especially if this is her first time.
As with every sit, have a backup.
Otherwise, Iâm with @Seniorsitter: have a solid conversation and ensure all details are communicated thoroughly, then trust your gut!
Be prepared to implement your backup. Re-list on THS.
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One question: How long is the sit?
Hi, ive been cancelled by a host 2 weeks before a sit, they seemed to have had valid reasons, but id already got ferry tickets etc, so i just had to wear it. I did upgrade to premium lately in case this ever happens again. Maybe that could also be your safe guard, up grading to premium to cover the cost of alternatives if the sitter cancels?.
Many first time sitters will opt for a local sit because they have a support network nearby. Long sits are lonely and this may help them ease into the pet sitter lifestyle.
All the sitters with 100+ 5 
reviews started out as newbies with no reviews.
We are grateful to the first four hosts who chose us to be their sitters when we had only external references. We have now done 35 sits!
Have you had a video call or phone call with the sitter ? They may be new to THS but have lots of pet sitting experience for friends or family . That was our experience before we joined THS.
Re cancellations , weâll that can happen with any sitter or host , experienced or not . We have had 2 sits curtailed because the hosts had an accident / became seriously ill while on holiday and had to return home early .
Everyone should have a Plan B . For a host this could be a paid sitting or boarding service , a friend, neighbour or family member who can cover if there is an emergency.
@Andrew1 If you have a good feeling about this sitter trust your instincts. Have you had a video call with her? This can make often be the most effective way to determine if you are an energetic fit. We have, on rare occasions, pulled out of a potential sit after a video call.
Everyone has to start somewhere! We have sat for many first time hosts- without any previous sitter reviews to help our decision making. Its always worked out. And every sitter also needs that first sit to get them started! Most people do have good and honest intentions.
Our very first sit was for a first time host in another country. We only had a phone call- in those days video calls were not yet a thing. We got on great. It was a month long sit in Australia over Christmas. We flew in from Bali and she flew to India to fet married! We never actually met in person. She left a few days earlier and her mother did the handover before flying off to join her daughter. There was a lot of trust involved on both sides as we were all very much relying on each others commitment to the sit. We had great contact throughout and it was a fantastic first sit experience for us all!
These days sitters are often recommended to look for local short sits to get started which is a good idea for many. But for us jumping in to a longer international sit worked great too!
6/7 years later and we have well over 100 5* reviews and weâll be forever grateful to our young Australian host giving us our first break!
So trust your gut!
Cancelling a sit at short notice, unless for an absolute or unexpected emergency, is rare but can happen to anyone -experienced or not. Its bad luck if it happens so its good to always have a back up plan.
as a HO, we have a face to face video chat and get to know each otherâŚduring this 20-30 mins call I will always mention that as a home owner that there is a risk in letting a stranger come into my house. I ask therefore politely ask that they share some photo ID with their address on itâŚdriving license will doâŚI also check them out on social media or linked in, or use the conversation we have had to google a bit about them, normally you can find something to validate who they say they are. When we sayâŚâjust imagine if you were a thief and you burgled my house, I would look pretty stupid if I could only give the police your christian name and a made up city of residenceââŚno sitters have ever minded this, if they did that would be fine by me, thats 100% their prerogative, but they would not be for usâŚnothing personal, just move on to someone who is a better fit for your needs.
From the perspective of a sitter, there are plenty of good and valid reasons for a sitter without many reviews to apply to local sits. Theyâre totally understandable and justifiable.
But my remarks are from the perspective of the HO considering a local sitter. Weâve had applicants for 6 sits total. Among the applicants, some were local and most of those were at least fine though with a generally shallow track record. The rest of the local applicants included
So weâre leery of local sitters and donât plan on changing that.
Lots of excellent suggestions, but remember
all sitters were first-time sitters with no reviews once. Someone was kind enough to take a chance on us. I still canât believe that folks took a chance on me for 2 sits over a full month in the UK. These were my 4th and 5th sits but when offered I only had 2 TH reviews.
Remember as sitters we may or may not be willing to âtake chancesâ with new to TH HOs. We evaluate the listing and our conversation with the HO and carefully read prior sitters reviews.
That said, in 100+ sits, there is really only 1 that Iâd have second thoughts about returning to. The dog was great, location fine, but the house was very cluttered. But it was during covid semi-lockdown and in a great location so there were many neighborhood coffee shops with outdoor seating. The dog and I spent many, many hours sipping coffee and reading outdoors. I think the dog enjoyed getting out of the clutter, too.
Yeah, same. That would be a reason for me to withdraw my application. I have some clutter. So what? I wonât be any less loving to someoneâs kitty or respectful of their home because I have a pile of stuff on my kitchen table and some randomly strewn clothes and socks 
If your home is clean and uncluttered when I get there, Iâm not going to clutter it.
Iâm also grateful to the person (also a first timer) who gave me my first sit clear across the country. As has been pointed out, âeveryone has to start somewhereâ.
For a new sitter, youâll want to get an impression of them with a video chat, and see what references they have. Do you still have to have 3 references to join? Sitters did when I joined. (Although, TH did/does not check these.) Sitters can link an Airbnb profile too.
Have you asked sitters for a tour of their home? How many have agreed? Iâm not in my home atm and many sitters will be in other peopleâs homes. If you asked me for a tour of my home I would refuse, despite the fact I keep it clean and tidy. Youâll lose a lot of good prospective sitters if you insist on this and there are less of us than home owners, so beware!
As Iâve said repeatedly, my advice refers to consideration of first time sitters. Someone with zero track record who wants me to leave my home to their care but balks at showing us how they keep their own home doesnât strike you as ironic?
HOs are trusting complete strangers with unsupervised access to their most private world and safe space. Yes Trust is part of the THS title but trust is normally earned and, in the THS world, it is bestowed by the community through the reviews posted by predecessor HOs and sitters. Without that earned trust, an HO has to bestow trust on first timers almost blindly. In a community based on exchange, there isnât much equality in the exchange of trust. HOs carry the vast majority of the trust burden even with well-reviewed sitters. That burden increases quite a bit when it comes to first time sitters.
Prior to January 2025, our problem was too many applications to sit with lots of great reviews. Whether that continues into the future we will find out in a few months. Either way, losing 100 prospective first time sitters that prove over time to be good is a much preferred outcome than gaining 1 disastrous sitter.