Unread and declined applications for sits

[Smiley]

See my reply below too

[Saltrams]

This is my reply to @Trudzie in the thread “Unread and Declined Applications for Sits”

@Trudzie

…Most of what I read here indicates sitters want answers in 2-3 days of applying. I don’t blame you. But from my perspective that’s near impossible to do. I had 11 applications before pausing after 12 hours on Day 1. On Day 2 we reviewed the 11 applications and whatever other info was in the profiles and reviews. We reached out to #1 choice on Day 2 with a question which they answered on Day 3. We did not feel it was necessary to reach out to every sitter even though they all looked great. But we didn’t reject anyone either until we had a confirmed sitter. Because of a conflict on dates with #1, we reached out to #2 choice that same day 3 and set up FaceTime call for Day 4. We locked in with this sitter on the afternoon of Day 4. The evening of Day 4, I wrote personal declinations to the other 10 applicants. I can’t even imagine if you didn’t know to pause the listing how long it would take an owner to go through 30-40 applications! Not that it’s right, but I can see some owners being flooded with applications and just going through a handful before locking in a sitter. They hit the confirm sitter button knowing the system sends out the automatic declinations. I was so glad I only had to do 10! But there are so many good sitters and you can only choose one!

It’s taken me a while to see this post of course AND the Rule of Five has made some of this obsolete. I know my comment will be moved to the Thread of Doom & that’s OK because I just wanted to say that this HO side of the story by @Trudzie has really opened my eyes to the problem from the other perspective.
Not that it isn’t rather a challenge to see both sides of a problem yet have no good solution to offer.
Could finite “Applications” be changed to short “expressions of interest” with a greater cap?
Could all sits remain open to expressions of interest while global time differences are taken into account? i.e. all sits are live for a mandatory 24-36-48 hours?
I’m feeling a bit like Paul heading for Damascus

[Vanessa_A]

Hi @Saltrams and we’ll leave your post and good observation here.

TrustedHousesitters has a product that changes over time, and so it is easy for posts such as this (as you say) to become obsolete in light of more recent amendments and changes to the software. This is why we close off some of the older ones if bought up again. This thread dates back originally to 2020 and has had no activity since 2021 almost a year ago. You’ll find similar more recent topics often that include better, more relevant info. This is one such thread we should really have closed, so I will do that now so that there’s no confusion for anyone who might not spot the date and get confused by some of the responses.

But as you also say this does highlight the problem owner members had when receiving many applications in a short space and provides a good alternative perspective. As Trudzie explains, she was pausing her own applications to try and make her applications easier to manage.

Leading on from that, the question you then raise of how long a sit should remain open was discussed extensively on the “other” thread, and Ben has addressed this in his update.

No Damascus today for you!!