What makes you say 'Yes' to a new THS sitter (especially if they have kids)

[Petunia]

I wouldn’t like a cleaner either. The sitter should be responsible enough to look after the house and leave it as they found it

[Tashie]

@Vicki64Vito20 I’ll have to to keep an eye out for one of your listings!

[teresaottesen]

For me the focus is the time with the animals or the garden. I feel the real connections come with being in the community and appreciating a new location. With three young children who will need daily tending it might be difficult for some home owners to have that much traffic in their home. My youngest is 15 years old and I don’t think I would consider taking him to a sit until he is older or has something genuine to offer the homeowner such as taking care of large animals, mowing large yards or pool upkeep.
As a teacher who is taking an extended break from teaching (a student gave me a concussion) in person this is a time for me to enjoy some quality time with loving animals and different communities.

[Coco]

HI @Tashie in theory this sounds a good idea but who would pay for any damage or theft that may occur from a cleaner/gardener etc and would the house owner know who they are before hand? I think the liability problem could be a difficult one. I know if it was me I would want to interview any external cleaners who came into my home and see references and DBS. I would hate to see a sitter put into a difficult position because of an outside issue. Other views on this would be really interesting.

[whirld.peas]

@KC1102

e on here apply to sits that specifically state the HO’s are only looking for certain types of people (e.g. single female) or that the sit is not suitable for children, etc…trying to convince the owner why they should still pick them.

This may work sometimes perhaps, but in most cases, is probably nothing more than a waste of time.

In case you didn’t know, this is a label owners can add to the assignment under the section that describes the home. You can also search by this filter.

Understand that sits with multiple children may be harder to secure but there are people on here who do sit with kids so it is totally possible.

Be authentic in your application and don’t try too hard to sell yourselves or your kids–people pick up on that sort of energy. I imagine a lot of applications end up being nothing more than a bunch of stuff the sitter thinks the owner wants to hear rather than an authentic message that gives the HO a real sense of the person.

At the end of the day, you don’t know why people pick who they do, and it often has nothing to do with any serious rejection of the other applicants, it is just the fact they can only pick one person.

As for offering the cleaner, that might be something you can address on an interview and not put in the listing. My first thought when I saw that was: I wonder if her kids make a huge mess. That probably isn’t true but wanted to share how the offer could be interpreted in a negative way.

What thoughtful advice! I second all of your points, especially your emphasis on authenticity.

[BonnyinBrighton]

We’ve secured x5 sits since joining THS just 12 days ago. How have we done this?

1. X4 solid references all regarding animals
2. A detailed profile including annotated photos, giving a sense of who we are and why we’re offering to be sitters. Why THS and why now….
3. Addressing the key items the HO focussed on in their description eg elderly horse, strong pony, style of property and land management experience, lively fit dog, or dog requiring a quiet steady day, rescue cat understanding/empathy, etc etc
4. Offering WhatsApp mob video discussion in the application.
5. Good preparation for the video discussion.

[Coclico]

@Tashie

, how would you as a HO feel about a sitter offering to or hiring a cleaner during their stay or end of stay clean?

Never ever I would accept a stranger who hire a stranger to clean in my house.
Imagine something would broken. Who was it? Who is responsable?

[Felinelover]

We’ve found that outside cleaners really stress out our animals, especially our cats. So I would not want that and view it as a negative.

For kids, our issue would be sleeping arrangements. We have one downstairs guest bedroom that we have sitters use. It has one full size bed.

We don’t want sitters using the upstairs bedrooms as our cats our shy and tend to wander upstairs at night.

So if there were one (well behaved) child who could sleep in the sofa bed, I would entertain a family. Any more than that really wouldn’t be a good fit with our pets.