Hi considering a sit, but there are no review. 4 past sits, no one left a review.
I view this as a potential red flag. Am considering asking for telephone numbers of past sitters for a reference, but thought I would start here. There is one other applicant, it’s a 2 day sit starting Saturday. Any thoughts? Thanks
For a 2-day sit I could drive to and was in a place I wanted to be, I’d definitely risk it. You could ask for phone numbers of past sitters, but it might put the HO off. Have you checked whether they’ve reviewed those sitters?
Not a chance I’d waste my time on such a sit. Major red flag. I suggest not inviting trouble by taking a sit like that.
What they say silence speaks a thousand words! So a hard no for me.
#runawayandfast 
Absolutely a red flag. There are two sits I took that I later learned had 50%-75% lack of reviews from past Sitters/Guests; I didn’t know how to see that on the app when I agreed. I completely understood why once I was there. I also didn’t leave those HO’s reviews (it was before the new review process).
But asking for the telephone numbers isn’t ok. If a past HO handed out my phone number without my approval, that would be unacceptable. THS would receive a complaint. Reviews are how you provide your input - or lack of review if you don’t want to deal with it.
I’m not as rigid as others about refusing to consider sits with missing reviews. If i really like the sit otherwise and get to a video chat, I would just ask the homeowner. Some people say that there are plenty of other sits, but that isn’t always true, and sometimes there is a completely innocuous reason for reviews being missing.
If the missing reviews are from the time during the worst of covid, it could be that the sits were canceled but still show in the system.
Did the homeowner leave reviews for the prior sitters?
Don’t do it!
Bothering people for just two days of accommodation? Really?
Just take the sit if you are curious how bad sits can be. You will probably survive to tell us the tale.
Semi-serious idea: Someone could take red flag sits one after another and then tell us about them.
A great idea for a series of columns in the travel magazine of a newspaper!
Only if i was paid more than anyone would want to pay!
@GentleSitter - As @pietkuip says, for a 2 day last minute sit I wouldn’t bother ‘investigating’ the case. It’s only 2 days…so the worst that can go wrong is a wasted weekend. If it was a multi-week sit…yes, I get that, but for 2 days: if you want it, just go for it.
@GentleSitter is the sit local to you ? In which case you could drop by and investigate before committing to the sit.
Did the homeowner review the sitters ? Are all the previous sits by the same person or are they from 4 x unique sitters ?
It’s quite likely the homeowner has already made alternative arrangements for this holiday weekend and forgot to remove the listing. So your application may go unread anyway.
Are you sure there are no reviews because the previous sitters are now “past sitters”? If they show as that, no reviews show, only reviews from current paid up members show. Just a thought as I have noticed this a lot lately.
Is that just for sitters? I have a review from a host who’s no longer a member and his review still shows on my profile. I tested it on private browsing (meaning anonymously, not signed in) and it showed that way, as well as in my logged-in profile preview.
I dunno…I might do it for the story. You could dine out forever on some of these.
I like your thinking!
Although, I’m not rushing to volunteer myself. I feel I’ve already been the canary down the coal mine more than enough times, especially in those early days on here when I was still a bit wet behind the ears!!!
@Maggie8K just sitters as far as I am aware, I haven’t looked at the homeowners to see if theirs shows but I would assume that if they are still active members, the HO review would show. But definitely past sitters don’t show reviews.
Bye Felicia