As in the title. There is a similar thread from the other perspective, so I decided to open this one.
Please discuss.
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Violations of the no third party rule. Other than cleaners, pool or garden maintenance workers, no one (friends family tenants short term rental guests) cannot âpop inâ to check on anything.
Any personal assistant tasks. Iâll take a package inside, but thatâs about it. Iâm not opening HOâs mail and doing handoffs, deliveries or personal shopping for you. I will of course, open and put away pet food or supplies you have delivered. Thatâs in the scope of pet sitting.
Renovations or real estate open houses. I am here to care for your home and pet but not to have to coordinate open houses or loud disruptive renovations youâre having done at to house.
These are my limits.
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At the end of our âabout usâ section, we state what weâre looking for in a sit. This includes:
- sits accessible via public transport
- non-smoking homes
- use of video calls to confirm a sit
We also state:
- âWe follow THS policies and expect owners to do the same. We donât accept indoor & undisclosed cameras, or non-vacant properties during our stay.â
And:
- âWeâre happy to arrive 1 night or a few hours your prior your departure, or can simply refer to your welcome guide if travel times donât align. Weâre quite capable & self-sufficient sitters who require very little guidance during handover, and use Google Maps to navigate your area, so are very easy!â
This way, owners clearly understand from our profile what we will and wonât accept, and what weâre looking for in a handover (for them to please not ask us to arrive 3 days early to show us how to use a microwave or walk us around the town 
⌠we do back-to-back sitting for like 80% of the year, for the past 4 years now!)
(*Note - doesnât always work though⌠current HO still showed us how to use a rice cooker⌠sigh⌠
)
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No inside cameras.
No third parties on the entire property, regardless of who they are (e.g. a father-in-law suite that adjoins the kitchen and shared backyard).
Dirty house, inhospitable accommodations.
Pets that are not as described in the HO listing and are problematic.
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Yes, I created the other thread and It was something Iâve always wondered what people would and would not accept.
Now here are a few things I wouldnât let HO get away with
When they add extra responsibilities when Iâm at the sit. Big no no for me
When they add an extra pet
When the place is really dirty and they expect me to clean everything for them
If they ask me that a neighbor may check up on the house a couple times or a family member. This would be a big no for me
The biggest thing that would make me leave a bad review and leave immediately is if they had bugs and mold
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Haha jeez!!
Same thing
Sometimes HO start to show us how to use the oven and washing machine and after the 20th sit in a row I feel a bit annoyed of that
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Referring to themselves as a âpet parentâ!
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Sorry to de-rail, but how you respond with emojis other than hearts?
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Press & hold the heart button, other emoji will show up!
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Homes have quirks. Personally, Iâd rather be warned and know exactly what they are. If the washing machine has a tendency to go off balance and make a sound like a bomb exploding and may tear up the sheet so Iâd better only use gentle cycle, Iâd like that warning.
If cleaning product X under the sink should absolutely not be used on the counter because it is too acidic, let me know please.
As a homeowner, I do have a written warning about my oven and ty to remember to show it to sitters if there is a tour. My spouse is terrified of it by the way. Itâs fine, but itâs tricky and I want to make sure nobody dies.
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Hi Colin,
What is wrong with a pet parent?
Itâs my preferred term⌠Itâs an identity. Iâm not a pet âownerâ. I have cats. You canât own a cat.
Many of the sits Iâve done were in rentals so the people living in them were not technically home âowners.â
Personally I hate the word âownerâ in relation to âsitter.â It sounds like the âownerâ owns the âsitter.â
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Renters are not the owners. I tried to raise this issue more than a year ago, but ⌠surprise ⌠surprise ⌠no response. Well, maybe there was, sort of, as âhome ownerâ was replaced with âpet owner.â My preferred term is âhostâ.
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@Marion what is wrong is that all home owners are called pet parents even if, like us, you have no pets and there is no option as a home owner to be called anything else. We know this because weâve asked THS to remove this from our home owner profile but they wonât/canât. Additionally, we are parents to a human child not a furry one!
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I call everyone a host, because it covers everyone who hosts.
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Hi @Marion
You are free to call yourself whatever you want.
However, personally, I think a human referring to themselves as the parent of their pet is cringe worthy. (For what itâs worth, humans referring to their pets as their babies also makes me cringe!)
I fully understand why many people donât like the expression âownerâ when talking about their pets, and appreciate the argument that no living creature should be owned by another. A better alternative, in my opinion, would be âguardianâ - which implies that you are the person who has the main role of taking care of your pet.
I agree with you and also donât like the expression âhome ownerâ as it is used by THS. It implies that all users own their home, which obviously many donât. ( it never occurred to me that it may be seen as they own the sitter, but I take your point) This can, and does cause confusion. I have read posts on more than one occasion asking if renters can use the service.
If you look back on my posts on the forum, you will see that I never use the expression âhome ownerâ, I always use âhome hostâ
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Agree to disagree. But I wouldnât impose or use a language test on potential hosts. Chances are they wonât refer to themselves as one or the other, but if someone said, âAs a homeowner, I âŚâ or as âA pet parent Iâ I wouldnât be anymore offended than I would be by someoneâs choice of pronoun.
Linguistically, at least in English, people can be foster parents of human children which may be different than being a âguardianâ which might imply other responsibilities. For instance children in state custody, might live with foster parents, who have some parental rights, but there might also be a legal guardian involved who has the legal right to make some decisions. Some people might find âfoster parentâ inappropriate or cringeworthy as it can be applied to people who have many children living with them for pay, or people caring for their own grandchildren for years because the biological parents arenât going to give up their parental rights even if they canât parent their own children.
I donât find âpet parentâ cringeworthy because while I donât think of my pets as children, I do think of them as family and my spouse and I are more in the role of parents than we are âguardiansâ which sounds impersonal. Cats donât have words, so they donât have a word to describe our relationship. I can only go with what feels most right in my language.
I donât know that my cats think of me as their mom, but they certainly think of me as part of their social group. So owner feels wrong. Guardian feels legal. Parent may not be exactly right, but it feels like the closet thing I can come up.
As a sitter, I think of hosts as hosts in terms of their home. Their home their rules, but I expect to be treated as a guest, not the help. But in terms of their pets â in my mind they are âpet parentsâ in the sense that the pet is a beloved family member and companion that Iâll be caring for â maybe as precious to them as a child.
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I could not care less what people refer to themselves as, Iâm not the language police, just be a decent human being. You can call yourself a pet parent or owner or host, I donât care. Just leave the place clean and be honest about your pet. And the duties.
I also wouldnât mind accepting deliveries. We would not tolerate someone else staying there or stopping in however unless it was a maid or gardener etc.
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People should be called what they are comfortable being called. And I agree with you, THS shouldnât use âpetparentâ to describe hosting members as they are open to people who donât have pets and still host. Since itâs in THSâs interest to have dues paying members, and since âno petâ homes are attractive to some sitters, they shouldnât be going out of their way to offend people.
I agree with @Colin that âhome hostâ or just âhostâ would make the most sense in official correspondence from THS and the official term for people in the âhostâ role. I also think that word alone would go far in helping people to feel the equality of responsibility toward each other.
But I think when we get into the area of how people with pets think of themselves in relation to their pets, thatâs personal. I have a catcentric home. Iâd hate to think sitters are judging me if I refer to myself as petparent, and Iâd hope that if they are, Iâd sense it and find someone Iâm more comfortable having as a guest. To me that would indicate a whole set of things theyâd be judging me for and neither of us would have a good time.
As a sitter, there are many things I wouldnât let a host get away with, but fortunately, I havenât faced any of those things myself.
Every place will have bugs. Iâm assuming you mean things like roaches or bedbugs, but good luck finding a sit without flies, spiders, mosquitoes, gnats, even ticks inside the home, especially in the summer.
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So Iâm on my 4th housesitâand still very much a newbie. The HO did add a few responsibilities after I arrived: water their flowerbeds, take pet to grooming appointment (in my car). It didnât feel right but I didnât feel I could decline.
Those of you who have faced similar situations, how did you handle it?
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