Same. I have withdrawn applications after calls if I receive another offer, but once I’m booked, I’m booked and I’m not cancelling for another sit (or any other reason barring major emergency).
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That must have been irritating. I don’t see the point of applying for sits you can’t do. Waste of time for everyone.
Conversely, I’ve recently had a new HO cancel a confirmed sit within 24 hours of my acceptance, blithely telling me they’d found a better THS sitter. Rude. People are peculiar sometimes.
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I understand that sitters may apply for several sits for the same dates … but in this case why would they go ahead with a zoom call for 1 hour and then tell the host during the call that they weren’t available any longer . That part doesn’t make sense to me .
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Because many people are both dumb and selfish. They probably figured if they were a shining star OP would be willing to adjust their trip dates to have them. Some HOs ARE flexible, but expecting it and springing it at the last minute is dumb. To me it falls into the ‘can’t hurt to ask’ range of questions, but it should be done in advance to save everyone the time and effort.
Where is your evidence of this statement? I think it is a myth.
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agree. most sitters I know don’t even do paid sits.
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If you could prove that someone ditched your sit to take a paid sit, presumably you could report them to THS, because I doubt they’d consider that a legit reason. But I doubt that that happens much, because most sitters probably don’t sit for money. You still can look at sitters’ profiles for their occupations, right?
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In these cases, the sit had not been confirmed and there is nothing to report.
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Yup. Withdrawing an application isn’t a cancellation.
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We’re sitters, that’s not acceptable. Yes, we reach out if we feel we’d be a great match for one another in the future, but we would never take anything to videochat or take up anytime of the pet owner on those occasions. We make it crystal clear at the beginning of our message that accompanies our application that we aren’t available for the dates, before going on to explain why we reached out, etc, I think that’s only just good manners. Fortunately all of the owners read on, and we’ve been able to sit for a lot of owners that way, and it’s been great for us.
We also wouldn’t apply for any dates we could do, unless we knew we were definitely available too.
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Exactly. I don’t get it. Sometimes people just invent excuses. This doesn’t sound like the real reason to me. Unless it’s a couple and the other person gets an offer they like better in the middle of the conversation. Perhaps a single person can manage to read the message in a different device during the video chat. I would not do it but who knows?
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This sounds like behavior some people wrote they do, in order to introduce themselves to attractive sits. I don’t remember the exact details but somehow they thought it gave them a lead on future sits. In your case, it had the opposite effect. I don’t know how it is expected to work in their favor, but THS has all kind of people. With only 5 applicants, you get the ones focused on getting sits, hedging themselves. Perhaps posting the sit with the required time of arrival and departure, sending a message confirming the dates and times work, before interview, helps efficiency. Though they may lie again. There are all kinds of people on the site, as some posts mention bad sitters.
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Hi @CAadventurer! I totally understand your frustration - my husband and I are sitters and we often miss out on applying for sits because they hit the 5 app mark too fast!! We typically get most of the ones we apply for, but there are some I am sad to miss out on because we weren’t fast enough. I always take the time to read the listing to ensure it is a good sit for us before applying - I don’t want to waste anyone’s time!
We live in AZ and love to pet sit in California! We typically drive so we have our car and can be more flexible for arrival/departure times. 
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Hello,
I suggest to start all replies with that disclaimer at first to cut the nonsense.
When someone applies to our sit the first question is, do you have experience medicating cats? Their answer saves us time, an interview, and disappointment.
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Sorry you’ve had a bad run of things 
As someone who has sat in London quite a bit, you don’t have a second to waste in applying if you want a sit in a popular location. I always make sure I’m available and happy with the sit details before applying but the pressure is intense. I imagine people apply just to get their foot in, without considering if the sit is right for them or not. The 5 application rule will have undoubtedly changed the quality of applications in certain spots, while simultaneously blocking good quality applicants. I’m an experienced sitter, who takes being reliable seriously. I used to have little issue landing sits in popular cities, now I barely even see the listings in time.
That being said, some people are also just flaky, on both sides. THS marketing has been attracting people with the wrong taglines which make it sound like either a breezy free holiday or a free Mary Poppins service for your pets.
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Agree, when I see some of the marketting I get angry. However, a lot of the marketting, particular video ads that pop up for me fairly often on youtube, etc, I find those pretty accurate in explaining the exchange nature. For me as a sitter, if the host seems like they are thinking of me as a “service provider” it’s a big red flag. Also if a sitter acts like they are talking to the proprieter of a hotel or seem suspicious about duties which are already stated on the profile “Not the easist catsit,” then I want to keep those conversations short and move on.
While I think THS needs to be more consistent in its branding and advertising, the problem is people. People will read into things whatever is convenient for them. They will disgard the information that they don’t really understand or that doesn’t fit into their worldview. This is why people with experience with hostelling, or couch-surfing, or other types of exchanges probably do better on this site in either role.
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Agree. I think it’s possibly another negative consequence of the 5 application rule.
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Not a myth. I know it is hard for all the above board sitters on this forum to imagine that there are, in fact, many sitters who have completely different ethics.
I posted my experience in this forum rather than the homeowners’ forum because that would be an echo chamber. I was hoping to get an understanding of how what we experienced would be sitters. I would happily upload screenshots as proof, but the texts have personal identifying info (names - cell #'s), which would cause THS to remove it - but not to worry - I have made them aware of the situation with screenshots of all communications, including initial the application, before and after the zoom so they can see the actual order of events.
After we informed THS of this recent experience, they suggested reaching out to sitters, which actually worked out well for us. In the future, I will pursue sitters this way rather than making the site available for anyone to apply. I imagine THS will get other complaints about this sitter (if they don’t already have several), and her account will get flagged if enough people speak out.
In response to those who wrote that they don’t believe that sitters on the THS site even do pay sits, I suggest you look at some sitter profiles. Often, new sitters without reviews put right in their profiles that they have wonderful reviews on Rover or other sites.
I have had countless sitters refer me to their Rover site (a paid sitting site) to see their reviews, particularly when they are relatively new to THS. I don’t have a problem with this at all. A sitter who sat for us on three occasions gave us business cards for her paid pet-sitting service and asked us to refer our friends to her paid business. I have no problem with that because she has every right to have a paid business and always honored her commitment to us as we did our commitment to her.
I do have a problem with sitters who cancel one sit for another, which I discovered had occurred on one occasion after a sitter canceled on us ten days before a sit “due to a family emergency.” Something seemed off about it, so I looked up her profile and read a review she received from someone else she sat for on the same dates.
Fortunately, sitters find our community, home, and amenities desirable, and our outstanding reviews provide ample evidence that we treat all our sitters with respect and gratitude and go out of our way to ensure they enjoy their stay. Therefore, our inbox generally fills up again within 24 hours.
That said, culling through the unqualified applications and wasting time on Zooms with those who are not transparent about their availability but hoping to make a connection for a direct invite in the future is very time-consuming and will backfire every time. I don’t know if it’s a complete lack of awareness or selfishness, but regardless, it harms the entire community, homeowners and sitters alike.
I am sure the amazing sitters reading this are incredulous to hear that some sitters would behave like those I described because you would never conduct yourselves this way. Sadly, these experiences are not as rare as you would like to believe. Those who still don’t believe this type of thing happens might find the homeowner’s section of the community forum quite eye-opening.
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Hello. Petsitter and host here.
My recent posting had 5 applicants who backed out.
One didn’t bother to show up for the zoom after several communications. Two decided it wasn’t a good time for them with their current life situation. ( One we had zoom scheduled, one backed out when I tried to schedule the zoom.) One decided a couple hours before the zoom that it was too far for them. Yes - Europe to the US is far…hardly shocking news when you apply. One was waiting for a potential job offer and could only do the sit if the job didn’t come through.
Not one of those applicants bothered to go back into TH to remove their application. I had to reject them all. This was inconsiderate on top of all my time that was wasted.
We did get a wonderful application finally and we mutually accepted each other.
We also live in a desirable area. I think this is a result of the 5 person limit that sitters apply without thinking things through for fear of losing the sit. TH would do us all a service by removing that.
I like your idea of inviting selected sitters versus a free for all. I have used that for people who have already sat for me in the past, but hadn’t thought trying it for new people. Great idea! Is there a process you use to find good sitters to invite?
Finally, sitters…please don’t apply to tell me you are interested in a future sit. I ignore the information and it wastes both of our time. Just mark my listing as a favorite and you will get notified of any future sits.
Loved your post. I thought I was doing something wrong as this never happened before.
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For gods sake THS, remove the 5 application limit - clearly everyone has had enough.
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