Living in CA/AB is probably not the nicest destination for sitters in winter.
My question would be, how could I find “local” or surrounding area, sitters, they might would enjoy a change of scenery despite the winter months, (because they are used to it). By all means our winters can be breathtaking, sunny and awesome.
And maybe people living in the city approximately an hour away wouldn’t mind a country stay/sit ?
Should I randomly write invites ? Just by chance? That’s almost impossible l guess and is this liked or do feel sitters enjoyed.
Or is there a better way? To get noticed?
I tried randomly to invite people last year with no luck.
But actually found someone reaching out to my ad, just in time and it worked out perfectly.
Thank you for reading. I would be glad to get some ideas.
During my first listed sit I scanned pages and pages of sitter profiles and reached out to dozens of them. I created a spreadsheet and put them in categories such as “favorites”, “maybes” and “not for consideration” based on their replies or lack thereof.
After a week or so of doing this and getting some great responses but no confirmed sits because of their stated lack of availability on those particular dates, I posted sit dates and was swarmed with applicants.
The second time around I reached out to my “favorites”, mostly because I had promised them I’d contact them the next time around, this included sitters who had applied to the first sit but were not chosen. Once again, this proved to be an exercise in futility.
That much said, I’ve read on this forum that some sitters do respond to invites so my suggestion is, first make your listing as attractive as possible, try to keep your policies favorable to sitters such as allowing them freedom to travel and not having to be at home every 4 hours to check on your cat (for example). If you’ve got a large garden like we do, consider installing an irrigation system (like we did) to alleviate the sitter of some responsibility. Offer use of a car, pickup/drop off at nearby transportation hub. Think like a sitter and cater to their needs.
If you’ve got the time, what’s to lose by spending some time sending out invites, the worst that can happen is you come up empty. What have you lost?
It’s tricky, and the chances of success with reaching out to sitters is low but it happens, we’ve accepted a sit invite that way before.
There’s a mix of all sorts of sitters on here. Our sits revolve around our family, so we regularly sit near to our home town to visit our family, and when we travel further afield it’s to be nearer to family too.
So while statistically reaching out to sitters nearby has a small chance of success, it still has a small chance, especially in the festive season if people want to sit closer to their family again.
So you could try local sitters, even though the likelihood of success is lower. Also, on a sitters profile it isn’t worded as their home town, it’s worded as “where are you located?”, so it could well be that someone has put their location of where they are sitting or would like to base themselves to sit, so you just never know, you may get lucky.
We often sit about 1.5 hours away from our home town, so you could also look at sitters in towns about that distance away.
Plus there are sitters that would love a little isolation to escape the festive mayhem for while. So good luck
@Kimba, welcome back to THS Forum. We’ve completed a couple of sits in AB, and significantly more in nearby BC - indeed three confirmed sits in central BC for 2026. Will be chilly, but beautiful.
This is subjective. Not sure of your location but AB attractiveness may vary a lot depending on sit duration, seasonality of dates, geographic location, pet responsibilities, local attractions.
That said, we have been repeatedly amazed at the diversity within the housesitter community - in terms of personal situations, listing preferences and housesitting usage.
We’d advise against random invitations. Very easy for you to invest time on speculative basis, perhaps with no outcome.
But we’d encourage you on two areas. First, to invest time in your listing - check THS Forum and use tips - ensure listing photos are attractive, text is complete (property, pets, local area). Second, and assuming housesit duration is more than a couple of weeks, include listing content that may be of interest to non-AB/international housesitters (e.g. airports, attractions).
The site is really set up so much better for creating a listing and publishing it so that sitters can find you. This includes local sitters who are looking for sits in your area on your dates, as well as sitters who maybe live an hour away and are looking for sits on your dates, and those further afield who would love to travel to your area and have availability.
While sitters you invite based on filtering for sitter location and sending out invites might be interested, many sitters sit for travel and don’t sit locally at all, and most don’t sit “full time” and might not be available even if they aren’t on another sit. It’s an enormous time suck on your part to search for sitters, and it isn’t even effective.
The best way to find a sitter is to make your listing as strong as you can. You can get feedback on doing this by posting your listing on a forum thread and asking for feedback.
It’s fine to decline sitters because you don’t find them suitable for your sit. You don’t have to take someone just because they apply. While you can only have 5 “active” applications going at a time, if you decline invitations and go to “manage dates” you can “unpause” and get more appicants. So if there is a local sitter out there who wants your sit, they can find you!
Edited updated: Okay I just looked. Honestly, if I lived closer to you, I would see this as a great winter getaway! So you might get sitters like that but you probably will get a lot of rule outs because of the “basic” internet. My spouse even if he’s on “vacation” is never really on vacation and needs high speed internet. My work is limited (I’m either semi-retired or underemployed) but when work comes up, I’m going to take it and I see my regular clients even when I’m on a sit/vacation. So high speed internet is a must for many.
And I don’t think you are wrong about city folk who might want a country getaway. We live in a very large city and regularly look for sits “driving distance away” for an inexpensive getaway. But we are a couple of thousand miles from you!
If you’re willing to upgrade to high-speed internet, you might want to mention that in your listing. Because if you just mention basic, many sitters will automatically skip you. That’s especially likely with telecommuters.
I sat for a pair of hosts who upgraded their internet before my sit (and I later repeated the sit). We discussed it at the outset. I didn’t see any reference to internet when I first saw their listing, so I asked. If they had just indicated basic internet, I probably would’ve skipped the listing from the start, since I telecommute. (I mention in my sitter profile that I need high speed.)
BTW, getting high-speed internet isn’t usually just a phone call. You often have to wait for an appointment and for a technician to switch your equipment. I know this, because I manage telecommuters and we stipulate at time of hire that they can’t start work without functioning high-speed internet. Some have had to wait and faced delays, because they can’t control ISPs.