Hi, @MalloryEchols! I’m sorry this happened to you. I don’t know how much experience you have with this sort of system, but it sounds like the sitter is new and it’s possible that she didn’t realize she was making a firm commitment. It sucks for you, as like you I do spend some time looking at the profiles and reviews, video chatting, etc., and it can take some time, especially when you have multiple really good applicants.
For future sits, if you decide to try again: if you have plenty of applicants, and particularly if it’s a sit that would cause you major inconvenience if you have a sitter cancel – like, it’s a nonrefundable flight or cruise rather than a road trip home to Mom’s where if necessary you could leave the next day or even go the next weekend – go with an experienced sitter with multiple 5-star reviews. It’s nice of you to have chosen a first-timer, and I’m sorry you ended up in a frustrating situation, but give the first-timers a chance when you’ve got a sit that isn’t too crucial to you.
If you get close on time, you can also list your sit as last-minute.
Thank you for this thoughtful response. I’ll definitely heed this advice. I’ve been on the site for close to a year now, and so far I’ve had 4 very positive sit experiences, so I was surprised that the sitter was able to simply cancel without providing even a reason.
She really isn’t supposed to unless both of you agree, per policy. But of course in reality, you don’t want a sitter who doesn’t want to be there. It’s frustrating, especially when you’d believed for nearly ten days that you had a sitter lined up, but honestly the bright side is that you have plenty of time to relist, and this sitter, at minimum, is possibly a bit of a flake. Bullet dodged.
@MalloryEchols HOs sometimes cancel for no reason too, often at great expense to the sitter. Neither sitters nor HOs should ever cancel unless it’s an emergency. Unfortunately, it does happen. THS has a very large membership and there are bound to be some who don’t take the commitment seriously. In this case it sounds like the sitter may not have really understood how the platform worked and clicked accept without realizing that was the final step in making a firm commitment.
@MalloryEchols what are you hoping to achieve with all of this. Sounds like a massive waste of time and energy.
The sitter decided they didn’t want to do the sit, doesn’t sound last minute or anything why didn’t you just unconfirm and repost? Why the need to argue over nothing? Were you hoping to force the sitter to sit for you against their will? Get them kicked off the site? That’s not going to happen and seems like you just are trying to be petty to try and ‘punish’ them.
This is all totally pointless. Just unconfirm and repost and move on with your life. You don’t really need to post about it on the forum aswell. It’s a volunteering platform, occasionally these things happen - you just need to learn to take it better.
I personally think vetting is a very good word for the first interaction between pet parent and sitter. I “vet” the listings to make sure all my requirements are covered and I would expect the pet parent to “vet” the applicants to find the one best suited to meet their expectations. Eg. Their dogs may be large and pull when on a lead. They would probably want someone with experience of large dogs and have adequate strength to cope with the pulling. Last thing they would want is a law suit from someone who was pulled off their feet and injured.
Not “vetting” the applicants means my time is wasted because I might not be able to fulfill something they expect or want the sitter to do. I don’t like the word interview in the THS situation. By the time I have a video call, we have had many interchanges and the call is a show around, putting a face to a name and ironing out any last minute queries before the sit is accepted. That’s not an interview in my books.
Hi Elsie, I appreciate your perspective on the subject. Maybe my wording doesn’t resonate for everyone, so I’ll explain in different terms. After receiving an initial message from prospective sitters, I review their profile and try to respond as soon as possible to honor everyone’s time. If I like what I see and read, then I will request a video call where I ask lots of questions and invite them to ask lots of questions, which I have called an interview. I recognize that I am not a potential employer interviewing job candidates, and certainly didn’t mean it in that way. I want to make sure that my needs are met and that the sitter’s needs are met as well. Thanks again for offering your insight.
Honestly, I sit and host. I have learned here, that the word “interview” bothers some sitters as they associate it with jobs and this is not a job. I think of the word in a wider way, and whichever role I’m in I think of the video chat as an interview – one where I’ll be expected to talk a little about who I am and either what makes me right for the sit or what makes my home right for the sitter. However, I’ve learned to avoid using the “i” word as some find it off-putting. Video chat, video chat, video chat. " Let’s have a chat and see where this goes."
2 years ago THS took the Sitter’s side with a very late cancel for a 7 week sit, leaving me in quite a bind. The sitter had been confirmed for 3 months and one month before I left for Spain from the USA, she cancelled, citing her adult son’s (mid to late 20s) need for eye surgery later in the summer. She felt she “needed to be near him in case he needed her” saying there was no medical reason or need for her to do so, she just to as felt compelled to as his mother. THS accepted her reasoning as valid, telling me " our children, no matter how old, are still our babies". I found this finding ridiculous and ended up stressed and scrambling for a very mediocre sitter whom I had to pay.
@Alaskamarge That seems like a valid reason to me. Often someone does need to be there to care for a person having surgery. If my 20-year-old daughter needed surgery I would absolutely be there to support her.
I don’t even have kids and I’d find it reasonable to be around even if my kid were grown and were having surgery. As a sitter, I might be out of money because of such a cancellation if it were the host canceling, but that seems like a legit reason to me.
I’m sorry that happened to you, Alaskamarge. A month doesn’t seem like that short a notice, though, and I can understand why she’d feel she needed to be there for her son. I had a family medical situation arise this weekend…2 days into the sit, my adult son had a seizure, the first he’s ever had, end up in the ER, had another seizure there, and was admitted for testing. I texted the HOs, telling them the situation, saying I wasn’t going to leave them in the lurch, but maybe we could discuss backup plans just in case things got worse. Thankfully they didn’t, and I completed the sit yesteray, but the response from the HOs was so heartwarming.
They immediately called their vet to ask how many injections their diabetic cat could skip, reached out to another sitter to see if she could step in if needed, offered to come home early if the other sitter didn’t work out, and when I apologized for giving them stress while they were out of town, told me, and I quote, “This is totally fine. Please do not stress over [cat 1] but focus on your son.” I would move mountains for these people.
All tests came back normal, which for now rules out some of the more scary outcomes, and they found a UTI which in rare cases can cause seizures. He’d had no symptoms of it, so no idea how long he’d had it. Fingers crossed.
All confirmed sits should be taken seriously from both sides. As a sitter, I’ve never cancelled a sit but several pet parents have cancelled on me. The first couple times I got membership services involved and they did nothing to help me. They just told me to apply for other sits. With the latest cancellation, I told the pet parent “ok, take care” That was faster than getting membership services involved. Hope you can find a suitable reliable sitter
I’m so sorry HO’s have cancelled on you like that and that you were given the runaround by THS. I agree that sits should be taken seriously on both ends, and after reading through other’s experiences, I realize that this is too common of an occurence for my taste, so I’ll be letting my membership expire in June.
I’m not sure it is all that common @MalloryEchols - it’s just all of the cancellation inconveniences & Irritations are shared on here as that’s what forums encourage. Support, venting, advice seeking, shared experiences and so on. Totally up to you but we’ve never cancelled a sit in 3 years of full time house sitting and that definitely applies to many other sitters & HOs.
@MalloryEchols I don’t believe cancellation from either side is very common. In 100+ sits in 10 countries over the last 5 years we have NEVER had a sit cancelled by a HO. As sitters we’ve only once cancelled a sit. It was several weeks in advance and in a very desirable location- the HO had a new sitter the very next day.
It sounds like you may have just been unlucky (or been reading too many forum horror stories! )
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