I agree the Greater London filter takes in sits as far out as 60miles/100km. It is something that I find very frustrating. Whilst you can zoom in what is the point of a drop down menu that lists City of London, London and Greater London as options if all still come up with sits way out of what could be remotely described as London.
Who needs a Sudoku or a Crossword when you have the game:
'find the location of this house sit in Greater London - brought to you by Trusted House Sitters!
Cryptic clues will be found somewhere in the listing, pictures and reviews. The challenge is to crack all the clues before the 15 minute timer is up, and 5 applications have been submitted!
Notice the active number of Christmas sits worldwide is now over 2,500! I fear there will be many unfulfilled sits for this period.
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Worst thing that happens is people who can’t get THS pet care end up getting friends and/or family to help in a jam or they pay for care or they don’t go away for the holidays. Or if they’re part of a couple or a family, someone stays behind. Folks can travel some other time, too. Shrug.
And I say the above as someone with a pet. It’s just part of the deal of having them.
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And we haven’t hit December yet @richten1 when there’ll be so many more last minute listings!!!
It’s a great opportunity for new sitters to get accepted for sit .
A pet sitter - the perfect Christmas gift!
So now I offered an idea for the THS Marketing Department 
Hopefully they will. Worst case scenario is the pet gets abandoned or taken to a shelter that is already full.
I play that game all the time! Wordle is more relaxing.
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With people like that, THS or any other business isn’t responsible for their actions. And none of us as sitters are responsible for that, either. If they’d give up their pets because of inconvenience, they’d do it anyway. That’s been happening with various pets adopted during the pandemic, unfortunately. If you think you or I or THS can stop them from doing that, you’d have to offer them free sitting whenever having a pet is inconvenient for them, like with many people returning to offices and normal life.
Oh I agree. I was making an observation, not suggesting anyone should respond.
Best wishes
Diane
Just a continuation of this thread. I’ve been approached by many long term HO’s desperate for a Xmas sitter. Many are saying they’ve never found it so hard to get any applicants for their Christmas sit. Less sitters or an influx of home owners.
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@richten1 The cost-of-living crisis works on both sides, I guess: more owners trying to find a sitter for free instead of paying a kennel etc, more sitters moving to sites where they get paid.
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What surprises me about the number of London Christmas sits is how very late owners seem to be seeking sitters with the number of NEW and LAST MINUTE ads very high. Perhaps they tried earlier and were not successful? I can understand some last minute sits as plans change but many people would (I assume) have known for quite some time that they would need a sitter over the holiday.
Great point @pietkuip. You could be right.
There are currently 731 Xmas listings in the UK accepting applications.
Any new sitters out there - an ideal opportunity to pick up a sit if you are available.
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We are always very happy to split up so as to help a homeowner out but that is no longer allowed, sadly…
Not looking at UK, but across Europe I’ve also noticed a lot of last-minute Christmas sits, many of which start or end on inconvenient dates. E.g end right after Christmas, start Christmas eve, even one that finishes on New Year, January 1!
Sitters wont be able to find affordable trains/flights at this point for such dates. As some note, public transport may not be even running or only be very limited on some of these days
I actually had a last-minute pre-Christmas sit fall through yesterday, as the HO had split the dates (I could only do pre-Xmas) and got no applications in the past days for the actual Xmas dates.
And the exact dates also differs per country.
And it may be difficult to find information. The results on Google maps may be wrong for such dates (because the train companies did not tell them).