Lucky escape! When I have to read a question three times just to understand what they’re asking that is a badly designed survey….
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Beyond ridiculous. You have to make surveys super simple for them to ever work for you……and I (sadly) love a good survey and still gave up
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I did not receive the survey. Sounds like a doozy
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Yeh, you’re right there, I had to re-read loads of them, it was as though the person who had written some of them didn’t understand how you word a sentence so that the reader can understand what they’re being asked.
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I think I may shout out the word ‘desirable’ in my sleep tonight as I read it so many times
I didn’t receive the survey because I didn’t renew my membership, but I think I see their intentions. They’ve set a limit of 5 applications and prohibited overlapping sits. Now, they can turn around and offer those same features at a higher price. The fully nomadic sitters, who are most affected, are also the most vocal on the forum and are likely to pay a premium for those features. 
What if they categorized sitters as follows:
- Fully nomadic couple (highest membership cost): Unlimited sits, first access to highly desired sites, ability to overlap sits, and cancellation insurance.
- Fully nomadic single sitter: Unlimited sits, first access to highly desired sites, and cancellation insurance.
- Occasional sitter (sits during vacations or weekends): Limited to 3-5 sits per year.
- Paid sitter (no overnight stays): Sitter gets paid per sit to check in on or walk the pet without spending the night.
The questions about income, rent, or mortgage aim to determine where you fit in these categories. This is just my theory 
@Twitcher I gave untrue answers all through as couldn’t believe questions, when it came to age I put one year old 
I wasnt asked to continue. I wonder why? 
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I enjoy a good survey but this one was ridiculous. I quit after just a few of the initial questions.
What in the world is going on?
Searching for a sit used to be a very pleasant experience, it has now become frustrating. I’m going to “hang in there” but I’ve started researching other pet sitting groups. At this rate it might be time to let our previous PP know that they can reach out to us outside of THS.
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@Alice my sentiments exactly. Searching for sits was easy, pleasant and relaxed. You could structure your application with thought and life was good. The site was straightforward and easy to manage. It has all become too hard, and is becoming worse. I am on two other house-sitting sites and have NO issues whatsoever. TH seems to be spiralling out of control. So unfortunate for a site that was once my saviour but has become almost unviable. 
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I too bailed out, at 23% completed. Far too intrusive and irrelevant unless THS is planning to charge more for offering less. Normally the demographic questions are optional and at the end. Not compulsory and at the start.
Trustedhousesitters, FYI it’s none of your business what my income is, whether I own my home and exactly how old I am.
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I’m an HO and I got one - some of my questions were different, so they must send survey based on the type of membership you have.
For instance:
I didn’t get that question, but I had one about how important/valuable (paraphrasing) I would find it to have “better” access to high-quality sitters. It was such a terrible question - clearly they are looking for a reason to introduce more monetized tiers, but without a comment box there is no way to collect data on what would be constitute “better”. Especially from the current level playing field.
What I read between the lines is, would you pay more money to not LOSE the existing access to great sitters.
That doesn’t even get into the whole subjective nature of what makes a great sitter for each host…
I ranked every single item that looked like an add-on as Completely Disinterested. not out of spite - I truly want THS to focus on what it does, not introduce a bunch of bells and whistles for the sake of adding revenue streams. But that’s what happens when an exchange system goes into start-up mode.
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They can’t possibly get any useful data in response to a question that asks about “the past few years”. That could be 2 years, 5 years or any number of years the respondent chooses!
I agree that many questions were irrelevant to THS as it currently is, and so were very difficult to answer.
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And I would also be interested in what they mean by high-quality sitters?
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How would they define “desired” sits. What is highly desirable to one person is uninteresting to another. If they go.down that route sitters will leave in droves. As it is, there are far more sits than sitters. God knows what their management team are doing, killing the golden goose.
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Again, I was paraphrasing, but that was the intent of the question - when I read it I thought, what does this even mean? My version of a great sitter is going to be different than someone else’s. The type of home and especially the variety and number of pets will also impact sitter greatness.
Turning this around, I already know my home would never make it onto a list of “great sits”, because I live in an apartment (not a house) in an older building with few amenities. All of the marketing seems to show sits in luxury homes, or sleek modern apartments, or charming country estates in bucket-list destinations.
Airbnb was never truly about sharing, since users were always paying for the rentals, but the original concept of renting a room in a home where the host lives, or a mother-in-law apartment, fell to the wayside as soon as people realized there was serious money to be made by scooping up available housing and tricking it out for unique experiences etc etc. I still mostly use Airbnb in its original form, but I have to ignore at least 85% of the listings. I wonder if THS will end up like this - the core group will still be able to post and find good old fashioned sits, but we’ll have to ignore all of the InCrEdIbLe ExPeRiEnCeS to connect.
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@ziggy very well put! Have they changed management? It is so totally different from a couple of years ago before all the controls and rules, so easy and fun to use back then.
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Good. Is there any way of contacting the owners/senior management direct to comment on the direction they’re taking THS in?
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