Is it standard or at least common for a pet owner to ask for your email drivers license and phone number?
Phone number or WhatsApp = yes so you can have real time comms outside of THS
D/L = yes if they are allowing you to drive their car as it may be required for their insurance but this will be country dependent
Email = not normally. Owners don’t need that if they have your phone/ WhatsApp number but some may want it to email you their WG that is not on THS e.g. Word doc
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@crookie is right. It’s normal (ish). But also, if you’re NOT driving their car, I wouldn’t give them your driving licence, or any ID for that matter.
100% of the time we give our phone number so we can whatsapp/message each other, also you’ll be sending them photo’s too via that method usually.
With your email, at a guess, 1 in every 8 sits email their Welcome Guide to us, because the THS one is a little too rigid/restrictive for some. The owner knows their house/pets better than THS does, so if they want to email it, just let them, it’s for your benefit (and their own).
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Phone number, yes - the rest, no. Driver’s license and similar are sensitive information ,pretty sure they wouldn’t feel comfortable being asked to provide that either. Unless it’s specifically about the use of a car, I’d see such requests as a red flag.
Worth to remember: If they have a pet, you need the hosts full name in the event of emergencies - it’s not always enough with the first name for the vet to locate them in their database.
I’d share my driver license only if I were driving their car and/or their community or building requires identification to extend entry and/or access to amenities. Some homeowners’ associations or buildings offer fobs, passes or decals for parking or entry through security gates, use of swimming pools, gyms, golf courses, for example, that way.
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It’s been often reported here that THS will not reveal a sitter’s real name nor their living address without a court order. THS’s T&Cs clearly state that THS does NOT confirm that a Sitter is who they say they are.
Is it reasonable for anyone under any circumstances to allow an unknown and unidentified stranger to take up unsupervised residence in their home?
We DO require full identification from sitters on acceptance of any sit for us. We were cavalier/sloppy about enforcing that early on but, after reading of experiences on this forum, we stopped making that mistake.
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If you have my address, it’s child’s play to look up my ID and a whole lot more about me and my finances. If you’re in my home with access to any of my mail, you have my name and the name of everyone else in our household.
On the flip side of that, without me specifically asking for and receiving confirmation that a sitter is who they say they are, I have no actual knowledge of who’s staying in my home.
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I always share my phone number and an emergency contact not traveling with me. I also give my email (a separate one just for sitting works fine).
Hosts can reasonably see ID to confirm who you are, but I wouldn’t let them make a copy with sensitive info exposed unless you’re driving their car. Then it is reasonable for them to get a copy of the license (I would obscure the actual number plus date of birth, just for safety) plus a copy of your liability insurance card depending on the country.
And don’t forget to get their full name + emergency contact too—because if something goes wrong and THS is unreachable, you’ll both be glad you exchanged details.
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I ALWAYS exchange phone numbers and email addresses with owners immediately.
Owners do not typically login to THS frequently. I don’t like to use the THS messaging system to communicate with the owner during the weeks or months before the sit.
Typically, if a sit is several months in the future, I check in with the owner via text or email about once a month, just to keep in touch and make sure everything is on track. This also provides reassurance to the owner that we are healthy and planning to be there as promised.
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Not uncommon to want an email if that’s they communicate. Absolutely common phone number/some easy way to reach other than THS. Not common: Drivers License unless you’ll be borrowing the car. But be careful about license as the image/information could be used for identity theft and image might not be safe through regular email.
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Lovely anecdote, though my comment was to the OP, not your personal setup.
Your comment to the OP was from a sitter speculating on how hosts would feel if sitters asked for the host’s ID. My personal setup regarding who’s home a sitter is occupying is pretty much every host’s setup. It takes very little for a sitter to learn the full identity of their host whether a host wants to share that identity or not. That is built into the setup. OTOH, it is virtually impossible for a host to learn the identity of a sitter unless the host explicitly asks for and receives the sitter’s ID before the sit begins. HOs who are aware of that last are being foolish if they don’t require a sitter to fully identify themselves.
I keep reading sitter concerns here about sharing their IDs over identity theft concerns when it is in fact the hosts who are massively exposed on that front. Sitters expect a host to trust them with their home and pets but some sitters believe sharing their real name and address is a bridge too far?
And, BTW, in the US, the risks of identity theft are very easy to mitigate.
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…well, lucky for those willing to take such risks in the US. THS already ID-checks travelers -if you insist on doing the same, be my guest
If anything goes wrong, THS will not give out any details at all on the sitter. You’re on your own.
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As a sitter, I try to be transparent with HOs. I’ve never been asked for ID, and my sits have all felt comfortable with mutual trust. But I completely understand why an HO would want ID. I am in their home, and even though I respect privacy and don’t snoop through their things, I end up learning things about them, it would be hard not to.
I think the likeliness of an HO going to the trouble of setting up a housesit and having me in their home to steal my identity is low and a risk I would be willing to take. I would only hope they would ask in a way that wouldn’t make things weird.
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@KB4JC - substantially all of our housesits have used WhatsApp communication during housesit. This requires exchange of phone numbers by both parties.
Many of our housesits have included use of Pet Parent vehicle. In these housesits, we are happy to provide drivers license number - but very few Pet Parents request it. Unless requested and needed then we would never provide drivers license, or other government documents, to Pet Parent. Equivalently, we do not ask Pet Parents for their government issued identification.
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Hi, I see this is an active thread so and I can see that it is covering a wide gambit of issues. I have been on TrustedHousesitters since January 2023 and have something like 85 five star sits.. I’ve just decided to update my profile because of the 5% that hire me… Who don’t even read about what things I ask for to feel comfortable during a sit. One of the things that I really am going to start is insisting on, is that the hosts fill out all the information in the official TH Welcome Guide. Some of them are really headstrong and refuse to do it and just want to give me their Google doc that sometimes is huge and often is printed out. If there are special things that I’m expected to do and there becomes an issue later, I want it to be recorded in the main listing. some people don’t even put their address in email which I think should be a requirement. The minute that I get to sit, I always take a screenshot of that information that is in the welcome guide. I like doing their emails in case there is a I like doing their emails in case there is an issue in the future or in case I want to email something and not send a Ping if they’re in a different time zone…. But again some hosts refuse to fill out the official trusted house Sitter‘s guide. 
I don’t know if I would be comfortable giving a copy of my passport just for security reasons based on what everybody says here. But I always suggest having a video chat and I do give people my social media handles if they ask and sometimes I just offer it. Especially to some hosts I become more friendly with and they want to stay in touch with me …
I’m hopelessly behind on all of my comms all the time. I tend to be very present at the Sit that I’m cut on — and I have to really measure the amount of communication I do in applying for new sits and responding! One feature that they took away for us is to be able to search for someone’s name in our past messages. I don’t know why they did that but I think it’s really important especially when somebody sat for in the past is asking for dates where there might be an overlap. And often times that can be negotiated. I think that really sucks and feels against / not supporting the Sitters. I don’t know why they took that away!!
Also I was just complaining to Support about how I’m now filtered for looking for very long assets often people who are going to be away for months ~ they often list their dates they’re looking for but they also state dates are flexible, that they’re open to having it broken up, or that they haven’t even made their travel arrangements yet. And so I can’t even contact them if maybe I have a week in between or there’s a couple days off. I think there should be a way for us to be able to send a message that gets sent to hosts and it’s not like a direct message, but it’s like TH says this person is trying to reach out to you, delivers the short note and says if you interested in talking to them, you can respond. Like LinkedIn. Because I think that sometimes they’re missing out on being able to meet the best match! Smiles 
TH has really grown and it seems like there’s still so many people that need sits and not enough sitters that it would seem that they would spend a little bit more time adjusting to our needs.
Why? If THS sitting is your priority, you should figure out how to improve your “comms.”
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Exactly. I always give HOs my full name and phone number straight away. If they use email, I’m happy to give them my addo too. If I’m using their car and it’s needed for insurance purposes, I’ve no issues about sending a copy of my driving licence. I’ve never been asked for my home address and can’t see why an HO would want it, unless they wanted to send me something by snailmail..
I do understand the argument that since we sitters can access all sorts of info about the HO, they should be able to ask for formal ID from us. But if I were asked outright for some kind of ID when it wasn’t needed for practical reasons, I’d be taken aback and put off. And I can’t think of any way the request could be phrased so it didn’t sound unfriendly and suspicious..
It’s true sitters will probably have more access to info about the HO than the HO will have about them. But that’s just in the nature of the deal. HOs who are really worried about it can always put their pets in kennels..
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The amount of public information that Trusted Housesitters offers on homeowners, might be something they’d want to research in terms of people being reluctant to sign on. If one wanted to and was not a complete luddite, one could for I woud say 75% of sits, figure out the exact address and last names of homeowners from google searches based on information in profiles.
For sitters who don’t add a linked in, there may also be breadcrumbs, but probably fewer because the location is less fixed, but the use of age and profession on the sitter page could also be breadcrumbs.
Unfortunately, the sitters most likely to be unreliable and scammy, are the ones most likely not to leave breadcrumbs.
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