All have been within a few hour drive
This is exactly what Iâm saying!
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@jenniferML7 and @suzydawg this has been suggested on several threads previously. Most recently @bakindoki
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@suzydawg that really would be helpful but I donât think they will ever do it because it might prevent new members from signing up. Right now theres mostly all 5star reviews so it would encourage new members to sign up. Honestly when I signed up, I never even thought of the bad stuff like cancellations, owners returning early, dirty homes, etc
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Actually, no. The interviews are aimed at helping to screen out sitters or HOs who are bad matches. But everyoneâs ability to do that will vary.
I posted the dates for my trip months ago, Iâve been cancelled three times now,? To say this is frustrating is an understatement as the start date is less than four weeks away.
Whether these cancellations are reasonable or the excuses believable I donât know but becoming increasingly disenchanted. Any tips?
Hi @SheilaC - can you add your listing to your forum profile and then members may be able to help identify the issue. If there is one and itâs not just a run of bad luck. Is there a pattern? Have you done video calls with them all? Have you had sitters before? Did they all have reviews?
Hello @SheilaC and a very warm welcome to the Community Forum. I am very sorry to hear of your cancellations, can I ask, did you do video calls with the sitters before confirming the sits and were they new to sitting or did they have previous reviews?
As @Cuttlefish mentioned, if you could add your TrustedHousesitters profile on to your Forum profile by following the attached link, that would be very helpful. This will then enable others to offer you helpful advice and feedback and will also give your listing extra exposure.
If you are unsure how to do this, or if you have any questions at all, do not hesitate to ask, we are all more than happy to help.
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I donât believe there is anything wrong with my listing, the problem is potential sitters not being committed to the sit. One said she had to cancel because she had an appointment at a clinic - couldnât she change it? Another suddenly discovered the dates werenât right? A third said her boyfriend had to work so they couldnât come after all. Itâs the commitment of potential sitters that bothers me and yes I had video chats with them, they knew and I knew whatâs we were getting itâs just that I am not getting commitment. And yes they all have reviews and yes I have had sitters before who have all given be glowing reviews. I donât think I am the problem.
Itâs an inevitable consequence of the new branding of TH as âfree Airbnb, with petsâ. People donât think twice about cancelling accommodation for those reasons, so if thatâs what they see the sit asâŠ
Iâve also noticed a subtle, but significant, switch in terminology over the last year where people (on this forum and other TH forums) are starting to refer to HOs as âhostsâ, which I donât feel accurately reflects what the TH relationship is (or rather used to be) and, again, is more appropriate for an Airbnb-type relationship.
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The official TH terminology is âPPâ (pet parent) for today. However, some people, including myself, refer to them as hosts, as I find âHOâ (homeowner) to be misleading. Not all "HO"s own their homes/houses. There are quite a few renters
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Oh my gosh. No! Unless you are some kind of highly trained and very skilled psychologist, you absolutely will not be able to tell the âgoodâ ones from the âbadâ ones by chatting with them on the phone/video for a few minutes. People know what to say and how to say it to appear âgoodâ. The most recent sitters that canceled on me, said all the right things in the many text messages we exchanged via THS. They had numerous 5-star reviews. I doubt they would have somehow said something so egregious in a phone call that I would have not wanted them to sit for me. But somehow they still decided to cancel on me 4 weeks before my trip and appear to have taken a different THS sit.
By the way, I did get new sitters 2 days ago. And guess what, we exchanged a few messages and I did heed everyoneâs advice here. I set up a call for that afternoon. But before the call, the gal said, âif you confirm the sit, I will pull the other applications I have out there for this time period.â And then once I did that, she agreed to the sit. All of that happened before we talked on the phone. Go figure.
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If your approach works for you, great. Everyone has their own approach and some folks can interview better than others.
Personally, I worked in news for decades and vetted people all the time. That was a key part of how I earned my living, including training other folks to interview. For the past decade, Iâve worked in the startup world, doing a lot of hiring and vetting startups to advise.
For instance, as a VP I once interviewed an engineer for another team. Of the 10 or so people (including engineering managers) whoâd met the candidate, I was the only one who said no. Iâm not technical, but could tell heâd be bad at the job. I specified why and shared the key question Iâd asked, so the hiring manager back-channeled with two former employers. They immediately said they wouldnât recommend the candidate, based on what Iâd flagged, so we passed.
I wasnât born knowing how to do the above. I learned over time. And Iâve seen plenty of people do it.
If you observe on the forum, youâll notice that many folks say theyâve gotten better at sussing out situations and asking Qs. If they didnât believe it was possible to improve, yes, that would be self-fulfilling.
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I believe that having a video chat, in particular, might possibly allow for the potential Sitter to feel more connected to the Owner, and especially if the Owner(s) come across as âreally nice peopleâ in the video chat (I realize this is highly subjective), I might feel more obligated after the video chat.
Thus, I might be less likely to cancel if 1)I felt a greater connection and 2)I like the Owners based on the video chat and all other communication.
If an Owner is âall business,â that does not do it for me. Sorry. Just my humble opinion and perspective.
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FWIW I agrĂ©e with @PVGemini about the video chat and stronger connection thing. Seeing I tot the whites of someoneâs eyes changes a lot for us, plus you can sense how clean the home is and meet the pets potentially. 31 sits in and weâve never taken one without a VC or a F2F meet. #sofarsogood (way too many acronyms in here, sorry 
)
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I have only started using the service this one time and I initially reaching out to 10 different sitters five showed interest one of the five confirmed, waited 5 days for confirmation. She confirmed then a day later canceled. Now I have reached out to 18 more and asked for any help at least for the majority of our trip. One responded that she could do 2 of the 3 weeks. I have sent two notes to confirm, even call me to confirm. nothing for 2 days and we leave in 8 days! Is this the TrustedHousesitters you have used for 4 years?
Hello @puliattiphoto and welcome. Are you inviting these sitters or are they applying for your published listing? If itâs the former then itâs a very time consuming hit & miss system, if itâs the latter then itâs surprising. Please clarify so we can help. If youâd like to add your listing to your profile then forum members can offer advice & tips to help find you a great sitter. And no, thatâs not normal. 99% of sitters & HOs match up and off they goâŠ. 
@puliattiphoto - This quote is confusing. I am wondering if you are occasionally saying âconfirmedâ when you mean âverbally agreedâ?
The most popular way to find a sitter on THS is to post your listing and then wait for available and interested sitters to contact you. This method gives you a high probability of confirming a sitter.
If you are getting no applications then it is quite acceptable to contact sitters privately but this is equivalent to the âcold callingâ telephone sales technique and the probability of securing a sitter this way is far less.
As @Cuttlefish says, If you link your listing profile link to your group forum profile then all members of this group can take a look and may be able to offer you advice on how to improve it to help you attract a sitter.
This is how you do that
Sheila, Youâll see that I posted about this issue. I wanted to let you know that I reported the cancellations to Member Support because two of the three cancellations appear as though they canceled on me just to do a different sit (you can check the sittersâ availability calendars to see if they are showing as unavailableâŠif thereâs a slash through the date it means that they are booked for a THS sit). I received a quick response from member support that the sitter had been given an official warning and had been added to THSâs internal watch list for future behavior. This doesnât help you with your current sit but I encourage you to report sitters with flimsy excuses, especially if they show as just doing a different sit. This will help all of us in the long run.
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As an owner if we had to âcancel a sitâ because we screwed up on the time and dates, we would simply find somewhere else to go for that time period. We honor the sitter taking time out of their life and schedule and traveling our way.
However we do expect the same consideration. If itâs an emergency, thatâs one thing. If a sitter just changes their mind, thatâs not ok. This is all about integrity and respect. On both sides.
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