I am both home owner and sitter. When someone applies for my sit, I immediately check their profile and, if I like the look of them, I make contact and accept straight away. This helps the sitter plan. I’ve had 9 sitters & everyone has been brilliant. You can just tell from their profile if they’re going to be good
However, I have applied for 2 sits recently & am left at “reviewing applicants” for weeks now. Not only does it prevent from making plans (both require me booking flights), I think it is really rude not to even acknowledge my application.
Anyone else in the same frustrating boat? Can THS not put a time limit on getting back to applicants once the maximum 5 has been reached?
There will always be a few home owners who take their time or never get back to applicants, unfortunately. I beats me why they’re advertising in the first place. Suggestions have been made via this forum in the past as to how THS might monitor this. Here was my suggestion a while back. You may wish to vote in the hope it makes a difference:
But quite a few HOs seem to wait until they get their five applications. Well, by that time I may have found something else.
Edit: yess! Now confirmed for a very attractive three-weeks’ sit in Cambridge in April/May. A lightning-fast HO, who had lots of enthusiastic reviews. I had applied yesterday evening, got the acceptance this morning.
I’ve found this to be extremely common and I agree it’s very rude. I’ve mentioned before that THS should have a response time measure like some other platforms. I have two on my dashboard now that have been ‘reviewing’ for over a month. Of course, I would never take either sit, I’m just watching to see if they ever confirm a sitter.
I agree. I remember THS saying that one of the apparent benefits of the 5 application system would be more timely responses from hosts. This doesn’t seem to be happening in many cases - probably before some hosts would be happy with the first or second applicant and make a decision whereas now, as @pietkuip says, they are waiting for the magial five.
TH could put a timeline on it but people will not all follow rules/guidelines any more than they do about inviting guests into the house, or whatever else they “should” do but don’t.
I also had one stuck in “reviewing” for nearly 2 weeks; then a decline with no message or anything after I’d accepted another sit anyway.
I’d just keep applying for others and not count on making plans around any of them till something’s confirmed.