Hello Everyone -
I don’t believe displaying members’ ages adds meaningful value to the matching process, and instead it feels like an unnecessary invasion of privacy. I assume this has been brought up before?
A sitter’s reliability, reviews, communication, experience, cleanliness, and how well they care for pets are what matter most — not their age. Showing age can invite conscious or unconscious bias and may lead people to make assumptions before even reading someone’s profile.
Many members join this platform for trust, connection, and opportunity. Having personal information like age prominently displayed can feel intrusive and irrelevant to the actual purpose of house sitting.
Privacy matters, especially online. Members should have the choice to keep their age private rather than having it automatically shown to everyone browsing profiles.
Welcome to the forum. I have zero issues having our ages listed however I see no reason why your suggestion shouldn’t be implemented allowing those who wish to keep their age private to do so.
@blue_sky You’re right, it has been raised before and nothing was changed.
It doesn’t worry me (I’m in the older bracket) and I only apply to sits I know I am capable of handling. Hasn’t affected my success in gaining sits. I usually find more compatibility with hosts of a similar age to myself.
So where do hosts see our age? Geeze I’ve always said that’s a need to know basis and I might have to k#ll you if you knew
even my kids didn’t know how old I really was for years.
I would imagine a host may prefer a 60 something retired person with own funds, and life experience, over a 17 year old who has never had to deal with a dripping tap or a power cut because parents dealt with it. For me, age seems a valid point for HO to make an informed decision on who to open talks with at least.
IDK. Seems that anything you do nowadays that requires any kind of paperwork always requires date of birth. Probably how scammers can so easily pick elder prey.
I would hope reviews of a sitter should be the most important factor. Of course, that’s if HOs provided honest reviews, which seems to be an issue.
Anyway, I must admit that if I was a THS HO, I would be a little nervous about a first-time 20-somerhing sitter.
I agree there is judgement with age but goes both for young and old. Being old I would prefer people over 40 staying in my house if I was a host and would advertise it that way. You could say I would be prejudice against younger people but my personal life experiences would rather have someone who has owned a home or raised kids and has a history of responsibility when looking after my pets and home. That doesn’t mean those younger wouldn’t be just s good but it would be my comfort level as would be my home. I was a Workaway host and over time had several people in their 20’s but they were not there to watch my home and pets. They helped out while I was living in the home and did a great job painting, etc. We all have preconceived notions because we are all human. As a sitter I look at profiles of host and I have observed that hosts like to have sitters from their own generation if they have choices. The senior hosts show mostly senior sitter on their page and the younger hosts show mostly younger sitters. The youngest host I sat for on here told me when I arrived that they had three others scheduled during this time that canceled. It didn’t insult me because I don’t have to be first choice. I was glad when they gave me a great review and asked me back thinking I opened up the doors with them offering the sit to seniors in the future. I am sure it was three younger folks that canceled on them. That’s my prejudice that people of my generation have higher work ethics. If the age is gone on here people will have other prejudice as they may look at your picture on the profile and be prejudice against nose rings or being fat or a lot of different things. Every sitter on here will eventually find a match.
I’ve brought it up before. Basically making the argument that it’s more private data out there publicly that doesn’t need to be and while hosts can make any decision they want it helps put the thumb on the scale and facilitates choosing a sitter by age. It may also put off some sitters at both the older end and younger end from even joining as they may fear their account is less valuable because owners might discriminate.
Homeowners who are concerned because they want someone mature with life experience or alternatively need someone healthy and robust don’t need an age number to vet wisely. They can look at photos and reviews and see and speak directly with the potential sitters to get an idea of whether or not they are up to the task.
I’m trying to break my habit though of repeating myself on these forums. This company has zero concerns about what any of us think. This has been made very clear to me based on the many updates and policies people ask for repeatedly that are never addressed and all the new rollouts that make things worse.
When setting up your profile, when it comes to the birthdate, THS explicitly says: “Your and your co-sitter’s surname and date of birth are for our records only and won’t show on your profile.” I believe that then showing our age is a violation of that trust in privacy. One’s profile picture is an accurate enough indication of general age.
BTW, do you know that you can go back into your profile to adjust your date of birth? Just sayin’…
@alegría, the age (as in birthday) is not showing. What’s showing is age group, which btw sitters themselves choose from a drop down list. For example 20-30, 40-50, over 65, where it ends
Well, this hasn’t worked for me.
My birthday is on the 28th but I entered the 27th in error when I set up my account/profile. I have never been able to correct it. Should be pretty simple, right? Hit ‘edit’, make the change and then ‘save all’ but it reverts back to the 27th every time (and I just tried again based on your post but no change).
So you are saying sitters don’t see your exact age they only see a range? When I click on my profile view it shows my exact age.
It doesn’t show your full date of birth, but it does show your age.
I believe it is exact age until you get to the ‘over 65’ category
I use the app; don’t know how it works on the desktop.
Interesting. I use the app, and it asks for date of birth. Are you on the desktop?
It appears to be the case. At least on the mobile. I can’t find the age range dropdown list either.
Also, there could be some discrepancies between the web and mobile.
profile pictures may not be up to date. I have looked at some profile pics of home owners and thought oh she looks younger than me, etc, then when I have met them they are actually older.
