Hello @KoriStephens and welcome to the community. We hope you enjoy starting and joining conversations, and connecting with other members from around the world.
This is a good question, and one that for us has varied tremendously over our years of house sitting. Generally, because we’ve always been very proactive in applying for sits, we’ve not been available to accept. Now we are based in France, and with the big upturn in house sitting, we are getting requests on a weekly basis, some for repeat sits rather than based on our calendar, but many that are new. I suspect, however, if we were still showing our previous location of London, it could be far less at the moment.
Hi @KoriStephens
When the listing for sitters was based on how many reviews a sitter had then we used to receive about 10 per week. Now, we receive about one a year.
I am not complaining as this gives everyone a fair chance. Also, it was apparent that many of the HOs had not read our profile or even looked at our availability calendar.
That is another issue, you may have read on other threads that it is too difficult for people to manually keep their calendar up to date so they may not even be available.
Hi @KoriStephens,
I used to get two or three per yea., Most came while I was already on a sit and the HO saw that I was already in-country. Since the upturn in available housesitting opportunities (as the world opens), I’ve gotten quite a few. Most have been local but several were in other states and one international invite.
We are only available to sit for a couple of months a year. If I had to put in when I’m not available, I’d have to put in most of the year. And then how far into the future would I put?
That’s a fair point. I agree with pete above that the voices of the forum tend to skew full time so I tend to forget that probably most people are likely only occasional sitters. I guess the best option is to allow users to choose when entering the time whether it should show them as available or unavailable during that period. Give the calendar 3 states: Grey = user status is unknown. White = User is available. Green = user is unavailable. Default everyone to grey and then let people add their availability or unavailability. It would be a relatively simple implementation that would give users better control over how their calendar appears. I also think that it’s important to include the location indication. Because available doesn’t mean available to everyone. It almost certainly means available in a specific location/region.
ETA: It would also be nice if the calendar could stack entries, like on google calendars. So I can enter in that I’m available in France for all of May. But when I get sits, it will show them both so I don’t have to edit the availability. That alone would have me using the tool. It’s the ridiculousness of having to edit availability to account for new unavailability that has me not using it.
More thoughts = more edits: Another option would be, to just give people a checklist of the months so they can mark their availability like that. Which months are you available - check each box. If you have partial availability, enter specific dates.
Also, the region of availability. I keep getting invited to the stays that I have favorited in Europe. I’m not going to be in Europe until next spring, but I like to have an eye on the places that could potentially be available.
We are not full time sitters, and normally only sit in school holidays. However if someone needed sitters reasonably close to home and school, we could do it.
I like to take the view that we are available most of the time, but not always available to travel to sit.
Maybe there could be different colours for Available to travel, Available local to current location, and Unavailable?
Question. I have a sit (#1) that begins in the late afternoon/evening of 23 Sept. Because the owners kindly offered to have me arrive a day earlier than that if I needed a place to stay, I asked them to list the sit as beginning on 22 Sept, and that’s how it now appears on my availability calendar.
I have now found another sit (#2) that would dovetail nicely with sit #1 and it ends on 23 Sept. The HO says I can leave early enough to arrive at sit #1 on time.
My question is, will the THS interface allow me to book two sits that appear to have conflicting days (sit #2 ends on 23 Sept, sit #1 begins on 22 Sept) or will I have to ask sit #1 to change her dates for me (again!! - I hope not)?
@Mars yes you can book overlapping sits. We had a week long sit that was cancelled at very short notice due to one of the HOs children testing positive for Covid last October. The last thing on their minds at the time was cancelling the sit on THS. We were able to apply for another shorter sit that overlapped with the original one, and were accepted. I probably have 2 overlapping sits still on my profile, but my feedback explains why!
That’s good to know. When we recently had a sit cancelled at the last minute, I was desperate to have HO cancel it officially because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to apply for other sits. She did, but now I know I don’t have to worry.
Hi
I’m trying very hard, about 20 now, I invite sitters thinking there available, to find there booked up, I think it would be better if all blocked off what they are doing, available or un available
Still searching
Headache
Why have a date filter when it does not tie in with those who have turned their dates turquoise on their calendars? Looking for sitters and inviting lots but my time is wasted by inviting people who are not available. If this is the actual case it would be helpfull if they made that clear. I reckon I gave invites to at least 30+ sitters with most replying with a declines snd some no reply. Most disheartening as it takes so much time to check profiles out for suitability.
We are very diligent in keeping our calendar up-to-date, and yet we often have been sent invites, during times we are unavailable. I’m not sure if folks completely understand how effective they can be when utilized properly. I always send a note thanking for the invite, and specifically advise why the sit is not compatible with our current schedule. I’m a big fan of using the platforms provided on the website and app.
my reply to 