@botvot so true!
@Amparo you sound SO lovely. Your posts are an inspiration to me and I feel spurred on when I read them. 
Thank you @Purdie for your kind words, I too need encouragement.
I am doing my best to acknowledge and reciprocate what I have received in this community.
Hi @Geiriadur. Sorry to hear about your concerns. I would hate that for my (now passed) pets.
Just a thought in case it may help, I sometimes donât use treats much (unless upon specific instructions like âhe always gets x before bed, or she always gets y before you go out, or they really love their treats every dayâ). I really prefer instead to bond with them, without the use of treats, because itâs a good way of seeing if Iâm really getting it right in my behaviour with them and I spend most of my time with them. And I always put toys and grooming tools etc back in their designated place after use.
I guess itâs hard for you, if you donât really know if thatâs the case in your instance.
Best wishes.
Well, nobody died! So it canât have been that bad. And in this case, the cats were actually pleased to see us home, whereas with the more wonderful sitters, I honestly felt that they looked disappointed - âoh! Itâs you. Wasnât expecting to see you again.â 
Funnily enough, I was just today reflecting on what sitters and householders can expect from each other, and whether we can all be a bit entitled and demanding in our expectations - I include myself in this. I keep remembering a sitter complaining about grubby soles of the feet when walking barefoot. Well personally I would never walk barefoot in my house, especially first thing in the morning before Iâve got my glasses on, as Iâve experience of treading in various unpleasant pet-related offerings! But maybe Iâm also unreasonable in small ways, so finding that things have been done slightly differently in my absence is not anything to bother about.
Why would you do it if you didnât get cheap accommodation? If you just wanted to cuddle animals youâd get your own or you could cuddle every animal in your town. Itâs disingenuous to think that people donât do this for mutual benefit.
Of course we do it for mutual benefit. However, there are people who see it as a cheap Airbnb and the pets an inconvenience. Yes, hard to believe but it is known to happen.
Yes I know all about that. Had one bad experience where I had to come back a day earlier as I didnât trust her one day longer in my house.
While there is no doubt that there seems to be a rise in non-quality sitters (as you say, probably due to the type of advertising), I would be very cautious about home owners who seem to slag off most of their sittersâŚ
@Bluehorse I would be concerned about taking a sit where the Homeowner refuses anyone who lives locally without taking into consideration the individuals application and reason for applying .
and I would wonder how they knew that
â a sitter did not feed the cat for 3 days-â and
âa sitter kept the heating on high in the middle of winter, no matter whether she was at home or outsideâ
How would the host know this unless they are watching the sitter through cameras ?
Red flags for me about the host rather than the sitters .
She has stated to you that âher trust levels are very lowâ that doesnât make a good start for a sit on TrustedHouseSitters and if so many bad experiences in past years, why continue to use the THS platform ? There are alternatives like paid sitters , catteries or stay home and look after the pets yourself.
I have had a sit in a smart house where all lights etc were controlled by an app that I had gotten on my mobile. I am sure the HOs had the possibility to see on their app when I had forgotten to switch off something. I guess that this information was also kept in some log. (But these people were very hands off, I donât think they ever looked.)
Yes agreed many smart home systems where HO can see when the lights or heating are on but how would they also know if the sitter was at home with the pets or out at that time ?
@Bluehorse maybe you should give this type of HO a wide berth. You are no different and she will probably say the same things about you despite what you may think.
We are always very careful when a homeowner starts complaining about how awful a sitter was or worse still how awful multiple previous sitters were. These type of people can never be pleased and you will become their next topic of Christmas conversation.
Literally passed up a sit the other day for this exact reason.
People lie all the time for the drama itâs a manipulation tactic to draw you in make you feel sorry for them. I suggest you look more critically and take people as you find them not what they convince you of.
This lady has had many sitters, way more than 5. And many of them have been very good - as mentioned. However in past 2 years, her experience with sitters has become a lot worse: she now sees a lot of behaviour that she never experienced previously when THS was still a smaller platform
@Silversitters - she does not live in a place where paid sitters or catteries is a common thing. And I donât know why she regularly needs sitters but staying home certainly isnât always an option!
@Enjaybee - I was under no point under the impression that she is a complainer. She seemed like a very kind person, who has been burnt in recent years as a result of sitters.
And @Silversitters - no, she does not have cameras, of what I know. Very uncommon where she lives. Re heating: thatâs not very difficult to know not? If a sitter stays for a month, you regularly stay in touch and they tell you a bit about what theyâre doing/why theyâre there - which apparently involves a lot of outside the house activity, who knowsâŚmaybe she/he was there for work or⌠- and afterwards you get a heating bill that is skyrocketing highâŚ
Not feeding the cat for 3 days: of what I understand, the sitter turned out to be a scatterbrain or mentally not in the right place, and who knowsâŚmaybe they stayed in touch, she asked something about how her cat was doing, and sitter accidentally shares that she completely forgot to feed the cat? Or maybe thereâs other ways - I havenât asked. The HO seemed very trustworthy; a nice lady. I had no reason to discredit her post-Covid experiences with sitters.
And to note: I was not applying for a sit. I got in touch with her for a different reason, which led to a conversation.
As this thread says: âSitters more interested in a place to stay than your petsâ - and thatâs what she has seen an increase of post-covid. Which makes her quite wary these days, as THS apparently hasnât been much of a help even though sheâs definitely reached out to them to report her experiences
If I had her experiences, Iâd not leave my pets with THS sitters again, even if it meant skipping vacations. Or Iâd move somewhere where pet sitting is a thing. It seems odd to not be able to get anyone else to sit, though. Because wouldnât there be other pet owners with the same problem there, so they could swap?
Call me Dolly Disbeliever but Iâm struggling with the home hosts story.
Iâve seen it millions of times of people exaggerating to get a point across!
I smell something off, too. But for the sake of discussion, even if we believed the host completely, it seems odd that theyâre willing to keep risking their petsâ well-being and canât come up with some alternative. Like would I risk my pet (or anyone elseâs) going without food for days, because of some idiot? Um, heck no!