As a sitter, to my mind there are no Ifs or Buts: What those people did to you was ignorant and rude. Perhaps they’d heard it’s a “sitters’ market” at the moment and assumed that gave them carte blanche. Perhaps they were just selfish and stupid (and dare I surmise, rather young?..)
Whatever their excuses, on behalf of all sitters - which I’m sure is the majority - who strive always to behave with consideration and decency : I’m really sorry you’ve had these experiences. But please don’t give up. You’ll find some gems, I promise. Because most sitters absolutely do NOT find that sort of behaviour acceptable. In fact, it would never cross their minds to act like that.
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Really?
When I see a sit that I might be interested at some other time I mark it as a favourite. That is what that function is for. Putting a foot in the door is just annoying.
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I think part of the problem is that THS has their system set up so that sitters are not able to contact HOs other than to “apply.”
I recently “applied” to a sit simply to ask the HO for a more specific location description.
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There’s a post further up the thread that @Silversitters references that advice from THS. We’ve landed sits that way and always caveat it with “please delete our application as soon as you’ve read it to free up spaces for others.” #smallprint
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Why on earth would you refer to yourself as a “lowly sitter”?? The adjectives I use to describe the sitters we have hosted are “fabulous”, “wonderful”, and “amazing” and because they are fantastic sitters who feel valued and appreciated have very positive self esteem. One particular couple who sat for us years ago have become great friends of ours and have already taken us up on our open invitation to stay at our vacation condo in Kauai (gratis of course).
I am so sorry your experiences have led you to refer to yourself in such a way.
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Love that you do this because that is exactly what it is for and I love that sitters do that because it lets me know who I can reach out to for a sitter when I need one!
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800 sitters? you must be exaggerating. There are 365 days in a year, and minimum sits are 2 days. So at most, 183 sitters in a year if you were NEVER at home. It is surely not possible to have used 800 sitters in your time on the site?
If you just mean they have favourited your sit, that means nothing in the long run, other than they may like your location, I favourite sits every day.
I don’t agree with the tone, but although I have seen that strategy mentioned - applying for a sit one can’t do - I can see that it can be super-annoying for highly popular locations, and come across as selfish and entitled.
Because such hosts will probably have no problem getting a sitter anyway and have no need for being able to send an invitation to someone who might or might not be able to do undisclosed dates in the future. So the motivation would be for the sitter to get some kind of upper hand over other sitters when they might not get to apply at some point. So no advantage for host.
As I see it it could be a mutual benefit for more low application sits, and especially where the host can be flexible with times to get a sitter. Then it could be a good idea to have a chat without publishing dates, as published dates could otherwise prevent sitters from applying if they have an overlapping confirmed sit. Just my thoughts.
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