Hello Everyone!
My name is Sue and I’m pretty new to all of this and have only used the service one time previously.
I need some advice as I have a confirmed house/pet sitter and we have been trying to contact her with no luck at all. We have sent an email through Trusted HouseSitters, her personal email, texting and calling her leaving messages. Our sitter was driving from Ontario and we haven’t heard anything for a month. We are getting quite worried and hope nothing has happened.
We will be away in January for approx. 5 weeks and we are quite concerned.
One month and no replies? Have you heard of gosthing ? Unfortunately it’s very common especially among young people… In any case perhaps it’s time to look for another sitter
I’m curious about this. Because being on TH requires paying a non-trivial amount of money. Ghosting just seems unlikely. That said, I have noticed unresponsive HOs and heard about unresponsive sitters.
@Sue2: Yes, please contact Membership Services. Hopefully they can shed some light.
Of course, there are two levels of concern here: One for the sitter as a human being, and one for you getting a sitter. While you wait to hear from Membership Services, I guess you could ping the sitter on all channels again, letting her know that if you don’t hear back within a day, you’ll sadly have to start looking for another sitter.
This may be morbid, but honestly, unless they’re physically incapacitated, there’s no reason not to reply within a MONTH. Ghosting is very, very far worse than cancelling the sit with an explanation. I couldn’t imagine not replying to any of the different messages sent to me from a single person no matter what emergency I am in, unless I physically couldn’t do it. And given that they’re not crazy.
If I were you I’d definitely look for another sitter. A lady I sat for for 5 weeks couldn’t get any response from her confirmed sitter up to 3 days before the sit was due to start. He had sat for them briefly before but he just seemed to disappear. You never know what might have happened. Membership services will likely get no response either as they’ve the same contact info as you no doubt. The owner posted the sit here on the forum and on Facebook. @Vanessa_A was extremely helpful and she got another sitter. To date she still doesn’t know what happened to her original sitter.
You have more time to secure another sitter. Good luck!
If it’s ghosting, it is wrong on so many levels: They might have opted for a ‘better’ sit and didn’t have the courage to tell you because they might not want to face confrontation…so they just disappeared.
If not ghosting, yes, then concern for their wellbeing as well as your plans…
Seriously, in this day and age we are frequently online, even if we’re on holidays. We respond within 4-6 hours and expect the same from HO’s. If it’s not happening, it just grating and frankly, it makes me uneasy. It’s not as if you’re corresponding the whole day long. A quick message here, a quick response there and it’s done, you might not hear from each other again for days/weeks. It should not be that hard!!
Thank you so much for your feedback and advice. I have reached out to THS and have gotten one of their team members to try to contact her. She actually was quite supportive and also suggested to start looking for another sitter.
Too bad this has happened but I’m still very concerned about her well being. Hopefully we will hear back on what has happened and if not I guess we will just move on.
Yes I totally agree with you on the ghosting thing. We are of the same mind that it only takes a few minutes to reply to someone as a check in. We used to have a vacation rental and we always kept in touch with our renters to make sure we were all on track and nothing has changed. Easy peasy!!
I really hope that our confirmed sitter is OK and nothing bad has happened. Fingers crossed.
I have reached out to the support team and they are trying to get in touch with her as well but have not heard anything back as of yet.
Yes I agree with you on this. There should be no reason for not getting back to someone even if it’s a short response. I really hope it’s nothing devastating.
I’ve been in touch with the support team and they are trying to contact her. Hopefully she will respond. Thanks for your input!!
So here is the update. Our Sitter has contacted us and came for a visit. All good between us and arrangements are still in place. The Support Team was very helpful and she did respond to us after being notified by them.
I want to thank you all for your advise with this issue and it was really appreciated
@Sue2: I’m so glad your sitter is alive! And came for a visit! Christmas miracle! =)
But I’m honestly puzzled. To edify the rest of us, can you explain more?
Why didn’t the sitter reply for a month?
(In another forum topic, the HO had accidentally blocked the sitter’s cell. So what seemed like the sitter being flaky was actually the HO’s mistake. <doh!>)
If this situation were to happen to you again, what steps would you take? How long would you wait to take them?
Or will you take certain steps to reduce the risk of a similar situation in the future?
I had my first sitter last month which was excellent. Several months ago I had a sitter confirm they would sit my pets in two weeks time. I’ve emailed a few times and shared the house guide but have had no communication at all since they confirmed the sit several months ago. Do I assume they are not coming after all?
As we’re two weeks out I’m getting really nervous that the sitters are ignoring me, any advice would be so welcome.
@LauraLeeds have you exchanged phone numbers - for example did you have a video call with them before confirming the sit ?
It’s recommended that you do this as soon as a sit is confirmed as people aren’t always logged into THS and so don’t necessarily know that they have unread messages . Member services will have alternative ways ( phone numbers etc) to reach out to try and contact them outside of the THS platform that is.
When e-mailing member services be sure to include URGENT in the title for a swift response - you can also try live chat feature and ask to speak to a human not the chat bot - in my experience that can be the quickest way to get a response from member services.
So if I were you, I’d create a very clear paper trail in your TH correspondence with the sitter and say, if you don’t get a response back in X amount of time, you’re going to look for another option. That lack of communication is a huge red flag for me. It also may not hurt to escalate the issue to TH and have them attempt to also contact the sitter for you, but regardless, that lack of communication makes me very uncomfortable, especially if they didn’t tell you ahead of time that they’d be off-grid before the sit from x to x time frame.
I’m not sure where you’re located but if it’s a fairly popular place, try to find another sitter. Depending on your membership if you’re unable to do so, you may qualify for the insurance coverage for sitter cancelation (I’ve found the extra cost of the premium membership to be very worth it for situations like this).
Lastly, it may be too late for this sit, but for future, I would get a secondary and ever tertiary form of contact information right out of the gate. I typically will do our video orientation and/or send details over WhatsApp so that way I can directly contact the sitter and then I make sure to duplicate all communications inside the app so that there’s a clear paper trail and history or interactions.
