We are owners of an old cottage. We don’t have a lot of spare cash so there are jobs we’d like to do but haven’t. The house is so old it doesn’t have a sub floor (this would cost about 30,000 per room!). So we have carpet tiles in the kitchen. We are often coming in and out from the garden too. Every time we have a sitter hubby says I get mega stressed as I do a huge clean up and clean out the oven / kitchen cupboards etc. . I imagine that people are looking for air BNB standards ie no hairs in the shower etc. Luckily no one has ever faulted us on cleanliness, just want sitters to know that an effort has been made 
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@ramsons I don’t know what approach other sitters take but I can accept that not everyone has a sleek, spotless home. In fact those are the sort of homes I avoid, I much prefer something with a bit of character and soul and as long as there are no fleas or unpleasant smells I’m pretty happy.
I also like to have something to clean, it gives me something to do.
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@Colin Hi Colin, we are new to THS & currently on our 2nd sit. Our first sit was amazing and this sit is awful but the owners are really nice & don’t see any problems.
We are 4 days away from the end but I don’t think I can write an honest review. I don’t want to hurt their feelings. They left us gifts ( a lovely gesture but unnecessary).
I also think, maybe another sitter would think differently and enjoy the sit - that it’s me!
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@paws4you that is a tough one and I can understand that you might doubt yourself - that is what bad sits do to you. We had one very bad sit. We were so depressed, because it was a long sit. And we kept asking ourselves if we expect too much? But the answer is NO. You immediately know when you arrive and things are not good. All other housesits were great, and there were no doubts creeping around our minds. Trust your instinct. PS. I left a positive, but honest, review, as I can not lie or omit in good conscience. Other housesitters need to be aware of the issues. The owners didn’t even bother to leave us a review, and I am not going to chase them. But I feel I did my duty to other sitters so that they can decide.
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Thanks for that. It really helps & I will think on it more & keep reading & learning from more experienced sitters.
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Hi @paws4you - It sounds like you are in a very similar position to the one we found ourselves in. You don’t say exactly why the sit is so bad but do not doubt yourself - I hope it was not too long a sit for you.
Unfortunately, the THS system makes it impossible to leave a truly honest review without waiting for the home host to review you first. If I was you, if they do review you then you leave them one using the ‘positive sandwich’ technique - Say something positive, then anything negative you want to say, then finish with a positive.
If they do not leave you a review, as a new host unfortunately I would say don’t say anything - it is not worth the risk of retaliation so early in your sitting journey.
Once you get a few great reviews then my advice is to always be polite and honest for the sake of other sitters, if they do retaliate it doesn’t really matter at that point as future home hosts will have your collection of reviews as a whole and the one bad one will stick out as not being honest
Don’t let this bad experience put you off. Our experience was also on our second sit - we have now done almost 30 and all the others have been great!!
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Not leaving a review has been my way of offering “a sign” to potential sitters, but you make a valid point that some sitters may not leave reviews even if it was a “good sit.” Not leaving a review, rather than a negative one seemed petty in a passive/aggressive way, but I did feel better for handling it as such, rather than put the owners “on blast.” Thanks for this post.
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@paws4you I’m really sorry you’re having this experience- we’ve been there too. Its very disheartening when something goes badly wrong on a Sit and easy to feel disillusioned but let me reassure you with many sits behind us is that the bad apples are rare and most sitting experiences can be very enjoyable! You will learn with experience to ask any, and every, possible question before confirming a sit to avoid the horror stories- but even then you can still get unlucky- that’s life! Our worst experience was about our 20th Sit & it was by far the longest sit we’d done. It was a nightmare and a challenge to extract ourselves from it a few weeks early. We had to involve THS to mediate! But it has not put us off housesitting!! We are now on Sit 53!
I get that you want to leave an honest review- that’s so helpful for future sitters- but for your own benefit I strongly advise you to get a review from them first before giving their feedback. If you write first & share your negatives- however positively written!- they could retailate with a bad revenge review. And as its only your second sit it could ruin your profile. Unfortunately the current review system forces you to think of no.1 first. Later down the road you’d be less affected by a negative review but it remains our policy to always ask for our review first. We work too hard for our 5* reviews!
Good luck! 
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@lonnieworld Same here. It feels really uncomfortable to write something negative, especially for a new host, that will remain permanently on their profile. Especially if the host is nice and even more so if they have given us a great review!! Its put us in a dilemma a number of times. In such cases we too usually don’t write feedback but sometimes we write privately to the host with our complaints in the hope we can influence them to change something for the next sitter… only once have we written poor feedback with less than 5 and I felt so uncomfortable about it even if it was justified!
Its tricky. I’d love to be totally honest every time for the sake of future sitters! But I’m not going to do anything that risks a revenge review and spoils our profile!
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@Colin @lokstar @botvot
Thanks so much for your replies. I can’t begin to tell you how helpful and reassuring they are.
I don’t want to say too much about the sit because I don’t want to ‘out’ the HO or myself.
Anyhow, last night, my husband read aloud past post from this thread & others & the tears of laughter were running down our faces - we were killing ourselves laughing about all the horror stories.
It really lifted our mood & we are now giddy because it’s almost coming to an end.
I can only imagine if sitters got together over a drink, what a night it would be!
We’re going to reward ourselves with a night in a nice hotel and a special dinner.
On the positive side, I never knew I could have such control over my gag reflex, we’ve both lost weight as the very though of food makes us nauseous & things can only get better! Can’t they? 
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Any update on the review system that was top priority for 2021?
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@paws4you I’d love to join that sitters get together too!!! OMG the stories we all could tell!! 
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This is with the Product Team @Smiley who will update everyone as and when they have any relevant information to share.
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Sorry but you need something to do .I don’t go to a house sit to clean some one else’s home .I don’t expect hospital cleanliness but just normal every day clean.I’m there to look after pets clean up after them and myself.
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@Genevere we all fill our days in different ways, if there is a garden to look after I’m in my element but the days can be long without something to do. I definitely wouldn’t want hospital clean either, it’s not very relaxing to be in that type of environment, well not for me anyway.
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I have no problem filling my days exploring with or without canine charges, reading, researching, exercising, meeting up with people etc
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I’ve had the same problem. I gave my sitter great review and requested but she never responded. Wondered if that’s the norm ?
I did leave a 4 star review for my last sit, because I had to clean up diarrhea stools inside the house everyday. The HO had significantly downplayed the chances of it happening more than a couple of days, and she had a potty pad on the floor, which the dog avoided each time. They left me an excellent review, so rather than not leave one, I justified the 4 stars. Felt like the best option for that situation.
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ANY NEWS ON UPDATING THE RATING SYSTEM??
I know this has been discussed A TON- I have read dozens of comments on this thread and it is old and very long. Is anyone even reading the 16 months worth of comments on this topic?
Is anything currently being done to improve the system?? IT IS NEEDED.
Is there somewhere THS is replying with info on improving and updating the system?
Many sitters have discussed the review system being unequal and untrustworthy.
By this I mean that I don’t feel the reviews that sitters write, in general, can be trusted to be totally honest.
Reviews are not blind as they are on airbnb. This leads us to avoid saying anything negative. Therefor I do not feel I can trust reviews left by sitters as sitters are nervous about being honest (as I am). This makes it hard to be confident applying for sits.
I don’t understand why there are categories for owners to rate sitters (reliable, tidy, etc) but the same is not available for sitters to rate owners for categories important to us (communication, tidy, etc).
I feel there are multiple ways this can improve.
Blind reviews
category point system
ability to contact (private message) sitters whom have sat at that listing in the past to get an honest review
I just finished a sit where I would not give 5/5 stars in every category such as cleanliness and communication but I am reluctant to say so. They have not yet written a review for me so I am waiting.
It bothers me that many of us are taking risks accepting sits not really knowing what we are going to find upon arrival.
I would love to know if there are plans by THS to improve on this system?!
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But this is exactly why the rating system as it is does NOT work for sitters!!
This means we can NOT trust the reviews we read left by sitters because we are not comfortable being honest AND there is no listing for breaking down the review by category out of 5 “thumbs up” (tidy, communication, etc) as there is for the owners to leave for the sitters.
Most reviews are glowing. Now I realize sitters just leave out anything negative (in most cases). No one benefits from this - owners are duped into believing something false and potential sitters are as well.
This is very frustrating to me.
I posted about this yesterday.
At the very least we should be able to private message past sitters to get MORE HONEST feedback on the sit.
I want to “warn” other sitters, too, but perhaps I can do this privately rather than publicly.
It’s frustrating that this thread has gone on for 17 months and as far as I know, there are no plans to improve it.
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