Does it seem to others like the sits offered are overwhelming short now that we’re in this post-Christmas period? I’ve been watching for sits multiple times a day lately and I see many that are listed for 2 or 3 days, 10 days occasionally. Last year our average stay was four weeks but I don’t see many of those any more in the USA areas that I’ve been searching. I’ve got saved searches on the app but I also do a general search on the website. I don’t want to complain because sometimes short sits are a great fill-in, but as full-time sitters I preferentially look for longer sits. Is it my imagination or have others noticed this? What do you think?
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In terms of general trends, I can’t really tell, but I’ve noticed a big upward tick in one night sits recently… For cats!
As a cat owner, I’d rather pay a local sitter to drop in for feeding instead of doing all the pre and post sit work for such a short period.
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We are about to embark on a 8 month road trip in US and Canada and are looking for sits no longer than 7 nights. Ideally 2 to 3 nights . Every sit we get excited about is for at least a month. We call it Sods Law in Scotland.
Fingers crossed you find what your looking for soon.
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I think it varies by time of the year, and location of course. But when I looked at US sits in Sep/Oct/Nov last year, I found the majority to be short (around 7 days), I even commented about this on the forum, that’s why I remember. But then, when I looked in Dec/Jan, many sits were in excess of a month. So it really seems to depend on the season.
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I could be that the longer sits get paused so quickly, that you don’t see them. I’m with @Pips - the work I do to prepare for a sitter is too much for just 1-2 nights for my one cat. I’d ask a friend to check or pay a sitetr.
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You could be right @Lassie , maybe when the 1 night sits appeared scattered between a much longer list of opportunities, it didn’t seem as if there were so many of them. If all the longer sits are rapidly reaching 5 applications, it makes sense that the shorter ones remain as they will be less attractive to most sitters. I’d only apply for a 1 night sit if I was using it as a stopover on a longer journey, or if it was on my doorstep. Otherwise getting there, cleaning on the last day and getting home would take up too much time and effort to be worth it.
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I think that last year many people were catching up on their long-awaitd or postponed travels after the various pandemic lockdowns and travel restrictions. Maybe last year there were more longterm sits?
My saved searches are for UK and Europe but I do see longer sits posted as well as the shorter ones. I rarely look at the general mass of new sits as they are posted - I have a lot of hosts saved as favourites (which turn up as notifs on my phone) plus I have saved searches for specific dates (which turn up as a daily email) so those are the listings that I tend to see even though the favourited hosts are a bit pointless now because by the time I get the notif they are almost always at the ‘reviewing applications’ or ‘not in need of a sitter’ stage 
@Debbie
It might be that the PP makes a listing for a 1 night sit so that they can contact/invite sitters. I just got a message from a listing like that - they wrote:
Hi, I’m not sure if the message I was trying to send actually went through. Please ignore the date - I was trying to make contact with you and the only way to do that seems to be to add dates. Thanks for adding us to your list. We are hoping for a week or two away in the summer and you sound ideal so I was wondering if you would be able to come and meet us and the cats if you are ever in the area with a view to a future sit if we can make the dates work. We are a 10 minute walk from X station.
Many thanks!
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Necessity is the mother of invention. As they say. I’m seeing a lot of creativity to get around system deficiencies recently.
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Totally agree, for us the cleaning and walking someone through staying here isn’t worth 1 night, I’d use our paid sitter for that. As a sitter, WAY to short of a sit.
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