I am sorry to hear you have had so many negative experiences. I have been sitting for 11 years and mine has been very positive this whole time–sure here and there some stuff has come up but nothing of the magnitude that some sitters seem to be encountering.
There is a lot to unpack in your post but just a few things that I would say:
THS is nothing more than a matching platform at its core and lots of the most common issues sitters and hosts encounter are ones they really can’t do much about preventing completely or fixing once they have arisen, whether it is cancellations on either side, absent or misleading info from a host, etc…
As for the state of houses, they have in the terms and conditions that sitters should be provided a safe, comfortable environment, but short of employing some global army of home inspectors that would need to give their stamp of approval before someone could post a listing, they can’t do much in that regard.
For any sitter that is deeply concerned about the state of the houses– especially because of bad past experiences– they best they can do is insist on a video tour and/or explicitly and clearly lay out what they expect the host to do to prepare for their arrival and be sure the host agrees to it.
THS really can’t do anything about the state of the houses of any of the hosts who join–their primary purpose is to match people offering a particular service with those willing to provide it. It is not like they are a travel company recommending hotels that they have personally vetted to meet a particular standard. Their site offers sitters an opportunity to travel, but they aren’t directly offering a travel experience…there is a difference there.
Being that the site is just a matching platform and they are not a direct party to these arrangements, there is very little they can require either side to do, so their role in problem-solving will be rather limited in most instances.
While they can set certain guidelines and recommendations for listings, they can’t guarantee a host is going to include everything they should be including, that they are disclosing everything they should be disclosing–sitters have to take responsibility for their experience and ask the appropriate questions.
Of course it isn’t fair if a host lies or misleads but once a sitter has a particular type of experience, then they know for the future to ask about certain things to minimize the risks in future sits.
Us sitters are not working on behalf of the company we are not their employees, meaning they don’t have any true obligations or responsibilities towards us.
I am sorry that you are having a bad experience, but much of it isn’t the direct fault of the site and your expectations sound a bit unreasonable and unrealistic.
I know that what is considered ‘expensive’ is subjective, but the membership fee, even at the premium level, probably equates to one or two nights in a mid-range hotel in many Western countries. Now if we were paying thousands of dollars for a membership, that would be a different story, and the site would likely function very differently for both parties.
Being that it is not a paid activity, I can only imagine that those who continue to do it even though they are having a lot of bad experiences is because they feel dependent on it in some way, whether for general housing or as the only feasible means to engage in more frequent leisure travel.
So if just stopping it altogether doesn’t seem feasible, it is important to examine whether their selection process can use some tweaking–people often choose sits from a wonky energy of fear and lack, or they get attached to a location and fail to consider other elements of the sit for example.
Of course even the most diligent sitter can get caught out with a bad experience, but for many long-term sitters like myself who have rarely had truly bad experiences over a period of years, that simply can’t be chalked up to luck.
I do sympathize with what you shared here, but you need to shift perspective –the type of ‘vetting’ they would need to do for hosts to combat many of the issues you listed just wouldn’t happen. They would need to do things like personally inspect the houses, personally interview hosts before joining, ‘fact check’ listings and such.
Again, they are just a matching platform and while I do think they do make an effort to improve the experience for both sides, they are just way too many variables for which they cannot account or control. I think they mean well with the membership services and offering people a chance to voice complaints and problems but again, not a lot they will be able to do about much of it even if they wanted to.
At best, you can raise formal complaints about these hosts and THS can take the appropriate steps. If the sit is truly that bad you can leave, though I know that is not ideal in many instances.
Of course the forum is a place to vent and discuss what people think ‘should’ be done, how things ‘should’ be, and perhaps some things will change down the line. But at the end of the day, all that really matters is how things actually are and managing expectations based on present realities.
