Hi @jenniferML7 I really am sorry to hear that you had so many cancelations right off that start. If the reasons the sitters gave don’t sound like emergencies then please send them to Membership Services right away as these do need to get documented.
In regards to sits being booked with overlapping dates please read this thread as I think it will give you some important information.
As a few of our members already mentioned the only way a sit can get officially canceled is for the homeowner to cancel it on their end. If the sit never gets canceled then those dates for sitter will continue to show they are booked. Likewise, as I wrote before you will be unable to book another sitter until you cancel the sit. This is why it is important for homeowners to let membership services know when a cancelation occurs so that it can properly get documented.
I understand all of that. The moderator revised my post and removed the quote from my sitter that I had pasted in (even though it contained no identifying information whatsoever). The sitter’s cancellation message provided no reason at all for her cancellation and she said “I ask that you cancel the sit” right off the bat in her first message like there was an urgency to it. That is suspicious to me. And the fact that within 2 days she was showing as unavailable really makes me think she just canceled to do another sit.
I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of one question though: can a sitter mark themselves as unavailable on their calendar for reasons other than they’re doing a TH sit? That is, if a sitter just can’t do any sits, can they mark dates as “unavailable”? OR, is the only reason that a sitter shows as unavailable on their calendar because they are booked for a TH sit? Because if it’s the latter, that means ALL THREE of the sitters who canceled on me did so to accept other sits and that is extremely lame!
Definitely report the sitters @jenniferML7 if you think the cancellation reasons are flaky and not “extraordinary”. THS HQ say that they track them on both sides but it’s not obvious to us as members. Really hope you find someone else. As others say, ask THS to put it on socials, last minute sits etc and if you have a little more time then delete the sit and repost it and it will go the top of the listings. Really bad luck to have three cancellations, most sitters honour their sits all the time over many locations and many years. Hope it all works out for you
I went into my profile to look at my calendar (since I have never looked at it before). As a Sitter, I actually could not even figure out how to view my calendar. This is the only thing I could find. See photo. I can add dates that I am available. That is it. Someone else mentioned that the “default” is that the calendar shows all dates as “unavailable” unless a Sitter has marked them as “available.” Hope this helps.
The default is white, or unavailable, although sitters can enter dates when they’re available, which show as green.
Once your sits are completely canceled, if those sitters later show those dates as struck-through, yes, they have other THS sits. If it just shows white, they don’t.
Before the cancellations happened, was there some communication that happened between you and the sitters? Like did they cancel right after you shared your welcome guide or some other info or expectation(s) that might have changed their minds? I ask, because having three cancel sounds rare. And if that’s why they canceled, you might run into similar problems.
For some reason, sitters are not granted the privilege to cancel a sit. Only hosts are. Thus, when a sitter needs to cancel a sit, they need to ask a host to do it.
@jenniferML7 if those 3 sitters have black lines struck through the dates of your sit AFTER you have unconfirmed them this means they have indeed taken other sits on THS.
If the dates are green or white it is unclear if they are available or busy elsewhere. But they are not on other THS sits.
Its also true that for you to confirm a new sitter you, as host, must cancel/unconfirm the other sitter from your end.
Sitters cannot cancel the sit themselves.
I’m really sorry you have had this run of bad luck. Please do report those sitters & also request support in boosting your listing again. Good luck!
Neither a sitter or host should cancel a confirmed sit unless there are extraordinary circumstances so if a sitter cancels without a good reason this is against the THS code of conduct.
THS can’t track a sitter’s cancellation unless you ,the host , report it to them .
The way the THS platform works is that it is only the host who is able to cancel the sit on the system - so all cancellations by default appear as it’s the host that has cancelled.
So you need to report each of these cancellations to member services so that the cancellations are recorded against the sitter and not you as the host . You can include screenshots of the messages where they asked you to cancel and the reasons given .
The e- mail address for contacting member services is :
Now when you say their calendar now shows as unavailable- are you seeing a line crossed through ? That would show that they have accepted another sit in which case you should also inform THS about this .
It’s against the THS code of conduct for either party ( host or sitter ) to cancel unless there are extraordinary circumstances where it’s absolutely necessary.
If these were all confirmed sits where the sitters later said they were unavailable for xx reason and have now accepted other sits for the same dates then THS will investigate- but they can’t unless you inform them - make a complaint and provide the evidence ( conversations with sitters )
I hope you find a reliable sitter soon - there are loads of us who take our commitments seriously and have never cancelled.
I really think it would be great if there was a feature added to show how often a sitter or owner is cancelling because this has also happened to me a lot this year and it’s usually within a matter of days before a sit is supposed to start.
@bakindoki sorry this has also happened to you - did you inform member services so that the cancellations were not recorded against you as the host ( which is the default for any cancellation) .
I hope you found replacement sitters in time for your trips.
You may want to add your suggestion to this thread
Interesting…I never knew that I had to contact member services about a sitter canceling on me or it actually gets recorded against ME as the canceler? That is ridiculous! It’s annoying and stressful enough for HOs when a sitter cancels, my first and only next step is to focus on finding another sitter. I shouldn’t have the extra step of having to report the canceler. Sitters should be allowed to cancel a sit on the platform so it is clear that they are the canceler and not the HO. I have lost count of the number of sitters that have canceled on me (and at this point I can’t even remember their names so I can’t even report them) and all those cancellations are now black marks on my record? I’ve been using this service for over four years and I’m only just learning this. smh
But it is the only thing that THS has statistics about. Sometimes they will respond here saying things like “cancellations have not increased”. But THS does not know how often sitters cancel or who the serial cancelers are.
@colleeninNYC - It’s not a black mark as such but all cancellations default as cancelled by host unless member services are advised otherwise.
This record is not published anywhere so no one outside of member services knows if a host or sitter has repeatedly cancelled.
THS have no way to know about sitters that repeatedly cancel unless the respective hosts inform them it was discussed in a previous thread and commented on by one of the moderators
I don’t understand why there’s no way to at minimum see whether a sitter has cancelled multiple sits. I understand that things happen, and I wouldn’t want to punish a sitter for getting sick or whatever, but if a sitter has cancelled confirmed sits more than twice in the past three years (or whatever), homeowners should have some way to be able to tell. It would discourage people from accepting in the first place sits they didn’t absolutely intend to complete, and it would discourage them from cancelling because they found something they liked better, decided they don’t feel like going to Iowa in January after all, or hadn’t realized the plane fare to Australia was so expensive.
Profiles showing repeated cancellations or early returns would be ideal for HOs and sitters, so everyone could make better informed choices. No one wants their plans to be upended and real emergencies and life changes happen, but patterns can be telling.
