@Colin yes, I think this goes without saying, although it’s difficult to stop your blood running cold at times when reading some of the horror stories 
My focus in this post is more to do with why house sitting is so often getting compared to staying in an Airbnb and why are people’s expectations changing.
I can see a major shift both on here and in many Facebook group discussions. I’m shocked at what people (on both sides) are expecting.
I’m a HO and been with THS for 1.5 years. We’ve had 8 great sits so far and THS has opened us up to more traveling. For us, it’s a win-win. My husband wants to do some sitting when we travel to Europe for an extended period of time. We will see.
I think one of the things THS can do better is define cleanliness. Since most people and culture have different views. When I host a sitter, they are guests in my home and no different than friend or family. The bedroom and bathroom are spotless and have fresh linens, towels and even extra towels. We usually only go for 2.5 - 3 week vacations so the refrigerator is cleaned out (except for condiments) and I make room in the freezer. I would be mortified for a guest to come to my home and have to clean it just to live in it for a short period of time.
Whether the sitter comes to my home for vacation, work, change of scenery, etc, it doesn’t matter, I want them to have a fabulous experience and hope that it went so well that they would want to come back. I feel this is the true meaning of THS.
I’ve been fortunate to sit for hosts like you for all but one of my 20+ sits. The exception was a family that lived dirty, and even then I could tell that they’d straightened up the whole house for me.
They just happened to live that way — caked on food stains on the microwave and fridge doors (I don’t even understand how so much food residue could get on doors), packed and gross fridge interior, so much greasy built up residue on their dining table and placemats that I would’ve had to use potentially damaging industrial solvents to clean. Luckily, the bathrooms had been remodeled, so were clean. And happily, I don’t cook at all.
I cleaned what I needed essentially (and laid out paper towels across surfaces so my laptop and such wouldn’t sit on their greasy build up). I decided to pretend I was going camping or otherwise roughing it. 
When I consider people like that, I don’t know how you’d be able to describe to them how to clean, because I don’t think they even saw how gross they were. When they reviewed me, they said I’d left their home “immaculate,” which it certainly wasn’t.
They were kind in various ways, though, like leaving me loads of sightseeing info and asking whether I was having a good time. They also had an open door policy for sitters to invite guests (though I didn’t).
So, @avidtraveler, in your case you feel that sitters expectations ARE being met, so that is good 
Have there ever been any expectations voiced by sitters that you felt were unreasonable?
Glad it’s working well for you 
I’ve asked sitters if there was anything we could do better for them. They all said no. Maybe that’s why all of our sits so far are 5*. First and foremost is the care of my dog. That is most important to us. Our profile and video chats we discuss the level of activity that is needed. We are very transparent so there are no surprises. We don’t ask sitters to do anything more on arrival than we discussed on the video call. We don’t expect the sitters to do any of the laundry they used, but we are most appreciative if they do.
Having a robust profile to get sitters to apply is important and the video call is second to confirm any questions that remain. Communication is the key to happy sits for both host and sitters.
To me, the house sitting is incidental to caring for pets in their home. And I’ll bet that THS chose that name, because pet sitting if used in a URL could be taken for taking care of pets, not necessarily in their own homes.
Personally, as a sitter I’ll water houseplants, but I don’t garden, weed or mow, even at home. Happily, my 20+ hosts have never expected such. They’ve used regular landscaping services or left it till they returned home. One pair had their grown son come by and mow. I mentioned I’d pick off pinecones so their tiny, lazy dog could run around the lawn and the host-wife said she’d never dream of me having to do that, since I was a pet sitter.
To me, best to find good matches. And hosts had better be clear upfront if they need gardening, mowing, etc.
If I arrived and were surprised by mowing, etc., I simply would remind the hosts that they hadn’t been upfront about that and that I wouldn’t have accepted, had they’d made that clear. Then they could arrange for someone else to take care of their yard or they could choose for me to leave and they find another sitter.
I actively search for sits that have a garden to care for.
That works well for hosts with those sorts of needs. Happily, there are a variety of hosts and sitters and they key is to match well.
I had also wondered if having a price tag on the airbnb unit I stayed in during the sit gave the PP the idea to milk as much labor out of me as possible for the lost revenue. My post linked: When a Sit Becomes… Everything But Just Pet Sitting – Advice & Local Sit Recommendations Welcome
Tbh, the ratio of good sits and sitters surpass bad sitters and bad sits. However, advertising and marketing do impact new signups who perhaps come into the site expecting something that isn’t 100% aligned with what Ths was designed for. The site is about caring for pets and homes while traveling not “this is just a NSA stay.”
@Kiwi, I have just finished reading your latest post. You really did have the most awful time. I hope you can relax now and recover, it’s taken a massive toll on you.
I think you unfortunately ended up with someone who was exploitative and you tried to be nice instead of upholding boundaries, which is the worst possible combo for THS sits.
I have THS-sat at what normally was an Airbnb property, for instance, and the host was terrific. Totally got the spirit of THS and showed great hospitality — voluntarily picked me up at the airport, treated me to a welcome dinner, had bought treats for me and left a generous gift card, left me their car to use. In return, they were thrilled that I took great care of their pets and home, and I left them thank-you plants, because they worked professionally in landscaping (none of which I was asked to do, besides watering).
They even invited me back to stay as a guest when they weren’t traveling, though I’ve not done that.
WoW—those do not like animal types need to filter their searches to “no pets.” They will likely not find a sit and that’s for the better, so the pets are cared for properly.
We now ask questions during video interviews to make sure that folks are a good fit. So far, it has been good, when we feel that someone isn’t partial to both cats and dogs (in our case) we find a better fit as we have had someone literally show up and say how much they hated cats (we had two then, sadly one now as our little man passed.)
It’s beyond me why anyone would do this 
When I joined, I linked to my Airbnb page so that HOs could see my reviews. At that time, I had about 30 Airbnb reviews all saying what a great guest I was and that I left the house clean. While those reviews don’t speak to experience with pets, they show that I respect other people’s property and am a good guest. They also show that I travel a lot, so HOs needn’t be concerned about me getting myself to their location. I think those reviews did help me get started on THS. I confirmed my first three sits with zero THS reviews (I also didn’t bother with references) and didn’t need to do any local or short sits just for reviews.
The linking to Airbnb is just to provide more information about me to HOs, no different from linking to a LinkedIn page. I guess people interpret things differently, but it would never occur to me that linking to my Airbnb reviews makes THS anything like Airbnb.
I think the reason for this was a misinterpretation however there seems to be a lot of people that are comparing THS with Airbnb.
Hosts frequently mention that if we were staying in an airbnb it would be costing us x number of £ or $, and people are constantly comparing the cleanliness levels with airbnb. Something has gone wrong somewhere along the line.
My guess is that the OPs reference to AirBnB had to do with THS marketing materials that referenced AirBnB. They weren’t referring to Airbnb links on sitter profiles that are obviously for learning as much as possible about a potential sitter.
There are naive, entitled or unreasonable people in the world in general. The ones who don’t get THS are just a subset.