Hi @Finch and welcome to the forum, although sadly at a time when you are deciding to leave TrustedHousesitters. I’ll just mention a few things that you may find interesting or useful.
I notice in your listing you’ve mentioned that you could work with a shorter timeframe. Have you considered adjusting your dates to reflect this shorter timeframe? If you do that, I believe it will refresh the listing and show as a new listing. Or you can adjust your headline to show ‘flexible dates’, which may attract suitable sitters.
One key point that comes up often on the forum is that, because of worldwide uncertainties for quite some time, many sitters are waiting until much closer to sit dates before booking. Given your sit is in August, there is still lots of time to find a suitable sitter. You have many key features in your favour, including no mention of a car being needed, and being family friendly. Those are important bonus features for many sitters.
I’m not trying to change your mind, but more just hoping to highlight some things you may not be aware of.
I have had my dates up for nearly 3 weeks and have not had a single reply.
I have contacted lots of sitters but no one is available.
Am i doing something wrong?
if you link your listing in your forum profile, people here can make suggestions on possibly improving the appeal. There are lots of suggestions in other posts.
Hi @Finch sorry to hear you are having trouble finding sitters for your two lovely dogs. They look very cute, could you try using a photo of the two of them as your main picture on the listing? Maybe try taking a photo of them in good light looking at the camera (as it’s hard to see black dogs sometimes, like in the pic on the sofa).
The current photo of the front of your house wouldn’t really grab my attention to tell the truth. But a cute animal photo just might.
Best of luck!
GORGEOUS! They are adorable.
Unfortunately we are already booked in for our summer holiday otherwise we would be very tempted to apply. Your pooches sound lovely, and we love it in Devon.
Good luck!
Hi Jennan
If you haven’t already I would encourage you to invite sitters who have favourited your sit. The problem is that there are so many sits now it’s hard to choose. We are not looking in the US but more generally when a sitter invites us we focus on that sit and try to make it work. Hope you have more luck - including the car is a good idea and will ensure it’s possible for international sitters to do your sit.
Hi AussieGail
I have invited most of the the sitters who saved it. They have declined or not replied at all. I’ve started inviting more local sitters only because the time is getting so close that I don’t know if it would work anymore for someone internally.
I have made changes to the listing based on advice I’ve been getting but unfortunately I had previously used my boost! I so wish I could boost it one more time!
Thank you so much for taking the time to offer me advice. I truly appreciate it!
Have a wonderful day!
I’m new to the THS community, I’m not sure if this is the best place for my first post, but I’m discouraged and looking for help. I posted our first sit 3 days ago for Jun 2-14. I haven’t had any sitter responses. I have done my best to read advice on the forum and blog posts to create a good listing and I have reached out to several local sitters with no luck. I linked my listing to my profile so you can look at it and give me any tips you may have. We have a sweet and playful German Shepherd and 10 chickens. Our animals are not needy, we feed them once a day and we let our dog run and play in backyard and play fetch with her. She is also a great hiking companion and we live close to great hiking. We are far from public transit since we are kind of out in the country and I haven’t offered use of our car, but I’m open to the idea if we need to. We can also be flexible on our dates by a day or two on either end which I stated in the listing. Any help or advice would be appreciated. We have been traveling so much recently and paying to board our dog is getting to be more than we can continue to afford. We were having conversations about rehoming her when we learned about THS. I’m hoping this will be a sustainable option for us so that we can keep her. Please help!
How many people have you contacted to invite them to sit for you?
Quick feedback:
I would lead with your dates being flexible in your title as that might help with people who might be interested but can’t do those specific dates.
I would emphasize that there will be no reno work being done while you’re there and that the photos posted are current. No one wants to live in a construction zone and it would be against terms anyway to have workers there.
Strongly recommend finding a way to let the sitter use your car if at all possible since car rental prices are insane right now on top of expensive flights.
You have two pics of the garden and briefly mention it but don’t say anything about what yard/garden work needs to be done, if any. Or do you have a gardner or you’re not expecting the sitter to do any yard work?
Hopefully this will work out. It would be a shame to abandon a loved pet and lifelong committment just so you can travel.
Hi @Chantelle and welcome to the forum, even though because of disheartening reasons. You pulled at my heart strings at the idea of considering rehoming Kowa. In some ways it does highlight the great value of THS to pet owners, especially when you do find loving sitters.
For your headline, you don’t need to say ‘great location’ - that will be for the sitter to decide. Your flexibility with dates is a key feature, as well as relatively easy-care pets.
I would remove your mention at the start of more dates to come. In part because you want to focus on this sit, but also if I was thinking of visiting your area but would prefer a later date, I would hold off. Try not to add anything that might have someone just favourite your listing, rather than act on it now.
Also remember you can boost your listing once with your membership. If you boost it, I would switch out your lead photo to be of the chickens, as it’s a great photo and eye-catching. If you get to within 7 days of your start date, remember the last-minute category option, and perhaps listing on social media at that point.
I suggest adding more about exactly where Boring is and what’s around it and how far it is from the heart of Portland, the airport, wine country, coast etc. I know Portland fairly well, and I can’t place it.
Providing a car would be ideal. Outside of THS, there are FB neighborhood groups where people list pet sits (paid or not). A friend who lives in Bend does pet sitting exchanges with people at their homes.
Hi, thanks for advice, unfortunately I cannot leave my car as we use it to tow our caravan. And for other holidays I’m not sure how this work with insurance.
Re the children advice I really don’t want to budge on my no kids policy. I have a very large pond with a steep drop and no barriers, there is no way of making it safe .
Hi Chantelle,
I would add how long Kowa can be left alone, as a few hours isn’t really specific enough. As you are a 30 minute drive to and from Portland sitters wil want to know they do have time to explore sometimes.
I’d also mention what size the guest bed is in your listing (double, queen, etc) as it can be difficult to judge it photos.
Finally, I wouldn’t be too discouraged. We just booked our next sit (for start date May 27th) yesterday. The sit we’re currently on now we booked on the 10th and it started on the 12th. Not ideal, but this is the last minute world we live in now!