Hello, currently catsitting in Sydney (Australia) as of today.
In the lead up to this sit, I applied for another 5 Sydney sits via THS, none of which ever responded to me. One of the sits was deleted (I received a message about that).
The other sits just disappeared - I never received a message that my application was rejected, or that the sit was deleted. However the sits no longer ‘exist’ when I click on them in my dashboard.
I’ve never had this in Europe (THS member since a decade).
Is this a ‘special feature’ of THS in Australia??? No need to decline applications or…anything… instead, you can just take the sit off site?
I’m not in Australia, but my guess would be that the homeowners just took the sit off the site. There is no rule against doing this. It seems odd that several sits that you were looking at disappeared and you didn’t get an autodecline email, but I’m guessing it could happen. Maybe the autodecline email went to your junk mail? While I’ve never posted and taken a sit down, I can easily imagine why someone would do this: found a sitter on another site, changed or cancelled plans, etc. From a host viewpoint, they could decide to write people and thank them for applying before they “delete” the sit, but there is nothing stopping a host from simply deleting a sit any time before choosing a sitter. While the system let’s people know if they’ve been declined, it might not send an automessage when the sit disappears.
There is also an active thread on this forum now about a sit where the host had a credit card issue on an autorenew and the sit disappeared from the system during the sit. So that could be an issue as well.
I live in Brisbane (here at present) and have applied for sits both here in Oz and internationally over a five year period. I’ve never experienced what you have mentioned and the platform in Oz is no different to what it is in any other country.
What has possibly happened is, there are two other house-sitting sites in Australia that are waaaay more popular than THS as homeowners can post their listings for free. Most advertise on both these sites and possibly they have also joined THS and listed there also. So if they filled the sit from one of the other two sites, they may have removed the listing from both the others, including THS. I know this happened with a sit I applied for this week here in Oz.
So no definitive answer for you but this is my experience of five years sitting on the three sites. Hope you enjoy Australia, the weather is super weird at present and Brisbane and surrounds are actually flooding.
Thanks @ziggy - maybe that’s it, although seems a bit of a ‘waste of money’ for HOs in such case to pay for a THS membership as they can join for free at AussieHouseSitters and the other popular ones over here.
Yes, I heard you’re flooding. Not planning to head up north ;-). I’m currently in Sydney. Lived & worked here as well as in Melbourne, and am currently revisiting both cities till end of Feb
@Bluehorse yes I agree it is kind of a waste of money but who knows human nature Enjoy Sydney and Melbourne once again and have a very Aussie Christmas (hot lol)
Enjoy Sydney and Melbourne once again and have a very Aussie Christmas (hot lol) 