I think that reviews still serve a purpose, but they need to be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. I figure that if a sitter has at least a half a dozen 5 star reviews they won’t trash the house and neglect the pets but I won’t expect much more than that.
If a sitter is really bad, I’d expect that to show up in at least one review over a half a dozen sits. Although I would hesitate to give less than 5 stars for the reasons mentioned, if a sitter was really horrendous then I’d put that in a review.
Regardless, a sitter with a positive review history still beats having a sitter with no history whatsoever.
Why give someone 5 stars if they weren’t a 5 star sitter. There is no point having a review system if Home Owners are not giving honest reviews. If I came home to a dirty house, faeces inside and animals not cared for this would definitely be reflected in the star rating and the review itself
Fair question. I gave 5 stars because at the time I only had 2, 5 star reviews and the sitter had many, in excess of 10 5 star reviews. I would come across as being unreasonable and picky compared to all the homeowners who left those 5 star reviews.
It would negatively affect my ability to attract sitters to my listing, rather than have any affect on the sitter. Besides I don’t feel inclined to warn hosts when the same courtesy wasn’t done for me. There’s a lot of fear among the membership base, which prevents members from leaving honest negative reviews. It was so bad that THS went to a “double blind” review system to encourage more honest reviews.
idocsteve has been flogging this personal hobbyhorse of his for months. His argument was that a host who gives bad reviews makes themselves look bad to future sitters. Also, he had a sitter he considers bad who had 5 reviews and figures all the prior hosts of the bad sitter did him no service so why should he do any future hosts any service.
If you point out the gapping flaws in his logic (as many 10s of participants here have already done), he responds by indefinitely repeating himself in long, pointless threads. It’s all very tedious and unproductive but he seems to get off on it.
The family we hosted did a wonderful job in every respect, and we will probably work with them again.
One issue- although we exchanged 5 star reviews, he docked me one star in “cleanliness” which irks me. I mean, I get it, the house isn’t “pristine”, we’re in the country, there’s lots of dust, we’ve got 3 dogs, 2 formerly feral cats that now have house privileges and are in and out.. the large dog sheds constantly so there’s always some fur around. Anyway we came back to a home that was cleaner than we usually keep it, and that’s great, but for them to hold us to the same impeccable standards seems to be a bit nitpicky and puts me off a bit to the idea of having them back again if we can find someone else.
Yeah I had a similar experience. I just note in my listing now that I have a hairy dog and my sit is not suitable for anyone sensitive to dog hair. It would seem obvious but sometimes you really do have to spell it out. Next sitter (20+ 5 star reviews before me, and we LOVED her) made a point to mention in her 5 star review of us how clean our place was.
Just spell out dog hair happens, you have a hairy dog, place is in the country and gets dusty etc. and scare off the weak-minded right away.
And honestly most house guests we have are surprised at how little dog hair we have (golden retriever). Some sitters are odd that way.
I’ll make a note in the listing to the effect of what you wrote and point out that it’s a country home with lots of animals around so it’s not going to be impeccably spotlessly clean and we don’t hold the pet sitter to a higher standard than our own.
No one pointed out the flawed argument in my reasoning. One member, maybe it was the one quoted above, pointed out a few things that I may have “failed to consider” when leaving an undeserved positive review but it was nothing new.
Yep, makes it easier. Plus if they complain later you can point out…they were warned. I think with your property and location just be up front about it. You’ll still get tons of interest anyway so no need to stress about it.
Most replies are along the lines of “it’s not fair to the community”. Someday they will read between the lines and if the reviews are properly written and replied to they will sniff out the truth.
Sorry it just also hit me that you hosted a family. That requires so much extra cleaning.
We clean and shine ONE guest bedroom, the guest bath, the living room/dining room/and most certainly kitchen.
The problem with families is all guest rooms that the family may occupy also must be scrubbed clean.
Which is a big reason why we say no families. The one sitter I had who I allowed an overnight guest was also the complainer. So, now, no more overnight guests, no exceptions.
Make life easier for yourself, especially if your property gets exposed to natural elements. Just take solo sitters or couples, and tailor your listing that way.
That’s been my learning. Sorry to families out there (I’m sure there are appropriate sits for you - mine is not one of them), but that’s my mindset now. I don’t need the extra deep cleaning. Nor do I need to feed dinner to a family of 6 (!!!) on arrival as I once got an application for, before I made clear no families (and did still get them, just declined straightaway).
In your listing, it really helps to remove any mention of how many total bedrooms/bathrooms you have. You can mention sq ft or sq m to give idea of size. Just mention where the sitter will sleep. If you mention any more than 2 bed/bath, families will apply no matter what filters you click.
I used to mention total number of bedrooms/bathrooms and recently removed it - this last listing I FINALLY got no families applying.
Perhaps you can draw some conclusions from this last experience.
IMHO, it proves that giving undeserved 5 stars doesn’t save you from getting less than 5 stars yourself.
Even the 4 stars you got for cleanliness prove that when people write honest reviews it helps everyone make better matches. It will probably help you find sitters who are not put off by dust or dog hair.
Although I do strongly believe in being fair in all aspects of life, I won’t develop that argument. Instead, I will point out that there’s a flaw in your revengeful logic: the HOs who unfairly wrote a 5 star review, which led you to choose a less than 5 star sitter, won’t be affected by your false review; they already know that sitter. So you are punishing everyone except the ones who wronged you.
I figure the hosts who wronged me are representative of the membership base as a whole. With exceptions of course. But that seems to be the trend from what I’ve read and as per THS going to a double blind review system in an attempt to encourage honest negative reviews when warranted.
And probably result in potential applicants wondering if we’re slobs.
It is also possible that his terrible sitter actually did do a good job at all her previous sits.
It seems these were all in urban areas with cats or a single dog. She may have thought she would be able to manage a rural sit, in another country, without transport and with multiple different pets, but the reality turned out to be more than she could handle.
Those prior 5 star reviews could all have been honest.
reviews and figures all the prior hosts of the bad sitter did him no service so why should he do any future hosts any service.