Sitters get canceled all of the time. My last sit was canceled 2 weeks in advance and I was left with an 800 dollar airfare.
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Hmmm. I am both a sitter and a pet owner. Up until last Christmas (2023) I have had nothing but great experiences as a pet owner and some of the sitters I have had have also become friends. So, imagine my total shock (yes that is not too strong a word) when my Christmas sitters cancelled at the last minute before my one month trip down-under to see family. I was unable to find another sitter and in the end I cancelled my trip and stayed home. (Thank goodness I bought fully refundable tickets!). However the cancellation meant I would not see friends and family at Christmas, and this was galling.
This story was a long lead-up to replying to the comments about underhand cancellations and “gaming the system”. My sitters contacted me first by WhatsApp to let me know they were not coming (to be fair they offered a valid excuse, which I chose to believe)and said that they wanted to let me know first in case I “needed to set up any insurances through THS prior to our formal cancellation of the sit”. I was not impressed at their suggesting I might like to change my membership, so I could claim insurance when I knew in advance they were cancelling. I thought this was dishonest and that rather tainted my view of the whole cancellation…After that they told me I should cancel the sit in the system, as they couldn’t. I still don’t know if they could have cancelled from their side, but I did as asked. This made it look as if I cancelled the sit, not them, which I was also not happy about.
Anyway. A cautionary tale.
I am not sure if punishments work. For me the solution is to be a LOT more careful about whom I select now and, yes, I do now have a preferred “profile” that is based on all the lovely sitters I have had before who honoured their commitments.
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Your profile is great! Very funny and you’re clearly the kind of sitter that I would look for for my sweet senior
pup. I’m so sorry that your sitter canceled on you. I don’t see that your profile is set up as a dual membership here, it looks as it is only for sits? I’m asking because I wanted to add it to my favorites as I’d love to visit your city and have a companion while I’m there.
As sitters, we cannot do that in the system.
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@Pushkina what poor behaviour and what a nasty way to do it. I would be really angry too! At least all your other sitters have been good so you know this sort of person, who lacks integrity, is in the minority.
Who is the major new investor?
There was an announcement made on THS. Mayfair Equity Partners.
Thanks for this 
No problem at all.
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@Pushkina @KateY do you have proof of the conversations on THS or Whatsapp? if so, I would send it to the THS team with a request to investigate these sitters for potentially acting against THS T&Cs, if you feel that they may have done that.
Then THS can look into the matter and contact the sitters to hear their side of the story. At the very least it might give them a scary warning that HOs hold the power to have suspicious behaviour investigated
It is correct that only HOs have the ability to cancel sits on the platform . If you want THS to record the fact that it was the sitters that cancelled and not you; You can forward screenshots of your conversation with the sitters who asked you to cancel to member services ask them to make a record that it was the sitter who cancelled
E-mail: support@trustedhousesitters.com
Great to see you no longer need a sitter @Pushkina.
I am applauding you for your good sense and sense of responsibility. The terms and conditions of the site explain that there practically has to be a death to cancel a sit (slight exaggeration) or at least a really good reason.
It has not as yet happened to me thank goodness but my daughter was at her wedding reception when she received a text saying the sitters were not going to turn up for the sit covering her honeymoon. As you can imagine, her actual wedding day, she was in bits. Fortunately, with a big crowd of people there they all rallied around and offered to do the sit on a day by day basis. They mainly worked with her and brought their laptops and between a few others, ourselves and neighbours managed to cover the 3 week care of the cats and dog.
The people probably had a good excuse - there were 3 of them travelling together and one was taken ill and they had to get him back from UK to USA. But be that as it may she will never use THS again.
It’s in everyone’s interest to have a backup plan, whether they’re hosts or sitters. Some people will have good reason to cancel and some people will be flakes, but no matter what the reason, you don’t want to be left high and dry.
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Thank you, and many thanks everyone for the lovely supportive posts. I miraculously have now found someone, who was only second on my list because she has no car, but am sure she’ll be perfect.
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THS is NOT notified when a sit is cancelled unless one party disputes. Therefore, they probably don’t have data on this. Out of now 10 sits at my home, I had one cancellation. The sit itself was on some odd days near but not including a holiday and I thought I had a video arranged with someone who sounded great, but she took something else the day we were supposed to meet. And then this other person came along. A few hours after they came to pick up the keys, they gave me a health reason why they couldn’t do it. However, they kindly offered to help me out by doing paid dropins! I declined. I realized months later when I saw the review that they d taken another sit that was also last minute, a little longer and maybe better situated from their viewpoint, but definitely overlapping my dates. While I suspected this was what was happening at the time, seeing the review just enraged me.
At the time, it didn’t even occur to me to report it. I bought the health issue sort of but mostly felt like this was a scam to get in, get the keys and then charge me for drop ins.
But I was told after bringing the story up that I could have reported them – even months later after I saw the review. I chose not to. But I did suggest to THS that they track ALL cancellations just to make sure both sides have the same understanding of what happened, and that they watch to make sure that neither sitters nor homeowners are casually cancelling, and to make sure that sitters aren’t cancel hopping – taking on a sit when offered but continually to look for a better one over the same dates.
They still aren’t doing that. There is no way to know how many times a sitter has cancelled a confirmed sit. But they did introduce the controversial no-overlapping update which might solve a small percentage of the cancel hopping issues, but has other problems of its own. So all we can do as members is write to THS and hope that the note somehow reaches a human and/or make suggestions in forum threads that maybe get passed on by monitors.
Basically it’s like ranting about the tax laws in a dictorship. We may all be paying for our memberships, but we don’t really get a say in company decisions.
What you can do as a sitter on your profile and in emails and conversations is emphasize your track record of reliability. But you really can’t control other people’s behavior and THS won’t.
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They use the term “extraordinary” reason, but I think THS is basically willing to accept almost any reason other than “took another sit” or “didn’t feel like it” if there is a dispute. I’m less concerned with the reasons then with the lack of tracking. In your case, there was an extradorinary reason although with three people traveling together, I’m not sure why one of the well ones couldn’t have done the sit.
I think the problem is from THS’s perspective why should THS do anything to stop this if the end result is more people buy premium plans with cancel insurance for more money?
It’s the same principle by which your television is deliveried with a crack in the screen and you can return it no questions asked. Why would they make stronger screens if that would actually cost more money than replacing the small number of televisions delivered cracked?
Hello everyone. Interesting discussion.
I myself cancelled twice since 2014 and was also cancelled once by a HO.
I was totally reimbursed by the airplane company both times I cancelled, doctor proof in hand.
The HO who cancelled me had a serious reason to do so, that I did not questioned.
But my plane ticket was bought, non-reimbursable, so I made the most of it and was lucky enough to find a home exchange opportunity.
What I suggest is that anyone canceling not allowed to apply on another sit for about the same dates (let’s say including a week before and after). If you can’t sit for the one you cancelled, you can’t for any of the others during that period.
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I suggested the same thing previously, but THS said no, because they found cancellations too complex to tackle.
Sad Sad. 