Trusted House Sitters

I've had cats all of my adult life (25+ years). I've tried every option when I am away from home: taking them to a boarding cattery, having friends stay over, having family stay over, paying cat sitters who come to the house for an hour or so per day, paying for 'professional' overnight housesitters. TrustedHouseSitters is by far the best of all the various methods. I can't easily afford 'professional' sitters and I found that they tend to have a list of dos/don't as long as your arm. It always irked me that I was paying them, but, they were the ones calling the shots. Friends and family unfortunately just cannot be relied upon. I've had them cancel on me when I am literally about to go to the airport to leave. And don't get me started on boarding kennels. Due to 2 horrific experiences, I will never use another one of them again. I was nervous using trustedhousesitters for the first time, but, I found the process relatively easy. I see it as an exchange of equals, rather than a customer-provider relationship. I'm much more comfortable with this exchange being equal. So, that's a plus in my books. Whenever I post new dates on the website, I tend to get a lot of enquiries from a very wide range of people. The reviews are always a good way to find exceptional people. The different levels of verification are an excellent way to get the people you will be comfortable with. The website can be a bit clunky to navigate around, but, nothing too major. All in all, i think this is a great company. I've now had 4 vacations where I used the company to arrange a sitter. All of the experiences have been very positive.

I have house-sat with TH in the States, Canada and the UK and have had only great experiences. I had only applied for far-away destinations, but local homeowners also found me on TH and engaged me, and I have ended up also having great mini-vacations with lovely pets only a few miles from home `` such a great break. Extensive emails back and forth essential, and for local sits I always meet them in person weeks ahead of time as well. I also will send documents to prospective homeowners to prove I am legitimate, and have asked homeowners for references of their own in the past. There is a lot of trust involved on both sides, so both sides should do as much research as possible. I do not have any pets right now so am very happy to play and care for other peoples' pets. I have found the homeowners I have helped out to be universally grateful and relieved to have someone caring to trust with their pets and home. In return, I am appreciative of the trust they show me and the chance for a free vacation in interesting places plus pets! What could be better? (I do not charge a fee). I always leave the house as clean or cleaner than when I arrived. Perfect arrangements for me, as I am a young retiree with grown children who loves pets, is good at outdoor and indoor work and is self-motivated to do a good job. If I apply to something it is only after some thought so I always ask them to briefly acknowledge my application even if they have chosen someone else. This has worked every time but once. Was it a false review, as one reviewer suggests? Possibly... or maybe it is a careless person who neglected to remove his ad after having chosen someone.
Again, I urge everyone to get as much info on the other person as possible before accepting, to avoid uncomfortable or dangerous situations.
I would also like to see more homeowners think to add requirements such as "dog must not be left alone for more than 4 hours". I am surprised that all dogowners do not do this.
For me, TH has been worth the annual fee.

We signed up because of the rating system and sitter verifications. We are 3 months out from our sitting dates and can't seem to find anyone to sit for us. Our situation: 3 healthy dogs, beautiful modern country home with every amenity ever needed in a crime free golf course community in the suburbs of a large city in Virginia, USA. We are going away for 2 weeks. Our only limitation is that the sitters do not have children because our dogs have never lived with kids and can get nervous around them. Before I tried contacting a particular sitter, I verified that they were available on the dates we needed, were not traveling with children, and that they had a history of sitting on the East Coast of the USA. (A lot of the sitters say that they will sit in the USA but then you look a their history and they have only housesat in the UK, Europe, or Asia.) They also needed to have been verified by the website, which is why I thought that the price was worth the cost. In a full week since paying our $119, we have been turned down by 15 sitters, 3 have simply ignored our offers, and the 2 sitters that proactively contacted us had children (ignoring that our ad said "no children.") The site says to sit back, relax, and the offers will start coming in. My experience: 2 offers in a week with both sitters ignoring the one restriction we had, with 18 verified sitters with a history of sitting near our home turning us down or simply ignoring our offer. $119 down the drain. I put up an ad on a competitor's website that does not charge the home owner and had an offer to sit in less than 12 hours. Unless you live in the UK or in a major tourist destination in the US, Canada, or Europe, you will find it difficult to find a sitter with this website. PS I did contact their customer service 5 days in and was told that they "would keep an eye on my listing." I don't know what that means.

I've yet to find a bad review of TH that seems like the reviewer really understands the site/service. If you can make a great profile, do your research, and realize that this is NOT a chance to just sit back and get all your travel accommodations (if you're a sitter) or home sitting (if you're a homeowner) totally for free and at your complete personal convenience, I think you will really find TH membership worth it. If your profile is lazy, poor quality and self-centred, you will not get people who want to live in your home/let you care for their homes and pets; makes sense. If you don't do your research, you may end up with a property or sitter you are very unhappy with; makes sense. At the end of the day, TH is charging a very reasonable fee for a whole year's worth of accommodation opportunities - do you really expect them to vet every single person and situation in detail as if they're a concierge at an upscale hotel? I can also confirm that they definitely send MULTIPLE emails before your membership renewsI think I got about six! "Your membership will renew in 2 weeks... Your membership will renew in 5 days... Just a reminder that your membership will renew tomorrow." If you've got these emails going into your spam folder or you're incapable of recording in a calendar yourself when your membership will renew... I don't know what to tell you. At some point, some personal accountability is required. Further, I've had nothing but superb customer service whenever I had a question or query for TH, so I have to wonder if some people are very belligerent and entitled, then surprised when they don't get a positive response. Long story short, I put a couple hours into creating a solid/appealing profile, I love using TH to travel and meet interesting people (and pets!), and I've had a really good experience all around. Even if I only made use of this for two weeks a year, that's 2 weeks of accommodation for around just $120come on, now, show me a better deal if you find it!

This is my first summer experimenting with trusted housesitters. They recently and finally have a proper mobile app that is far more efficient than the web/desktop version! It still lacks a few helpful features in my opinion, but for its first app, I think that its satisfactory! Im just happy they have an app at all! One thing i would like, is to be able to search specifically for housesitters with specific filters such as experience or numbers of reviews, city, and by name when someone refers somebody. I like the fact that home owners have thorough space to add specifics like "needs a car" or "has a washer/dryer" etc and that the site offers a house manual option. That has been very helpful for me! Moving forward, i Think it would be great for the site to include helpful Logistics on checking in and checking out of the home. Helpful ways to make it efficient. One homeowner asked if I could arrive the day prior so that they could show me around the island of Hawaii where she lives to give me an orientation since ive never been there. Other homeowners were unsure how to do the day of arrival logistics as well, And asked me personally what people usually do in that circumstance and I too wasnt familiar as I've just begun a few house sits myself! perhaps something in the Housesitting listing that includes things like: can arrive the day before or can stay until the next morning after the return. Especially if it requires staying late in the evening or having to arrive first thing in the morning to house sit as many are traveling from outside places. Also, if sitters have to check in when the family is already gone, perhaps helpful options like a video tour orientation via face time or skype etc. As a check in option. Anyways just a few improvements to help make the housesitting experience run smoothly from beginning to end! otherwise id highly suggest trusted housesitters!

You can be lucky, which we were 2x. Great location, great home owners, nice pets, clean house. Perfect!
But you can also be extremely unlucky, which we were 3x. The problem is that previous housesitters hardly ever leave a negative comment, because they want to get other (better) housesits in the future. You almost only find the good experiences with 4-5 star ratings. If a house was not really that clean or a dog not just "a bit spoiled" but in reality a 24h attention demanding completely untrained dog, that is hardly ever mentioned. The worst however is, that a housesitter has no position of anything if he / she is let down by the home owner. One appointment was canceled after confirmation just because the home owner found a veterinarian after us... The other "ordered" us to leave, just because someone from the family learnt about "mother's idea of housesitting" and did not like the idea. This platform does not allow previous housesitters to contact each other - and I think that this is for a reason. In that case people would be free to share their real experience. I can only recommend for housesitters to very carefully check beforehand in detail about what they are getting themselves into. We were very lucky twice and enjoyed housesitting a lot. But the last experiences killed that joy completely and we are not housesitting again.

It's simply egregious. I had absolutely NO intention of sustaining a "membership" for more that one year, so the auto-renewal option must have been a default setting.

I contacted the company as soon as I was aware that it renewed (not to mention the rate had also gone UP from $85 to $99!) but so far they've refused to refund the PRE-paid subscription fee.

They didn't even offer to prorate it!

Instead, multiple customer service reps continue to defend their terms and conditions, treating me like someone who has done THEM wrong. I am a CUSTOMER! Not someone who violated your company.

I find it extremely upsetting the lengths companies will go through to take advantage of hopeful and honest people. It's CLEAR that it's in the design of business model to get the customer's money first and foremost, and disregard customer satisfaction.

Trusted Housesitters got my money NOT FROM PROVIDING A SERVICE THAT WAS VALUABLE TO ME but by MANIPULATION and lack of integrity.

Everyone has a choice. They choose to put a lot of effort into keeping my money and NO effort into creating a positive partnership.

I have been a member of Trusted House Sitters for almost 4 years. The past 2 years have not been a great experience. In 2020, my house sitter left my front door open while she was loading her bags into her car resulting in 1 of my dogs getting loose. I then spent 6 weeks trying to track down my dog and trap her. Luckily I was able to trap her that time and get her home safe. I decided to chalk it up to the house sitter not being experienced enough and to give THS another chance. After that every house sitter I worked with, was told multiple times how important it is to keep the front door closed and secure. I wouldn't think this would be an unknown factor to anyone house sitting with or without animals. A year after I got my dog back, another house sitter left the front door open resulting in my dog getting out once again. I chased her for 5 weeks, but unfortunately this time I was not so lucky, and she passed away before I could trap her. On top of that, I had spent over $500 in costs to change my flights to get home sooner, hiring a drone to search for my dog, and in the end cremation costs. I also got hit with almost $700 in citations from my city for my dog getting out. THS refused to pay for any of these charges even though they are all a result of negligence of a house sitter from their site. Not only do I have to deal with the heartache of losing my dog, but I also have to deal with the financial strain of almost $1300 because the house sitters on this site cannot be trusted to keep your pets or home safe. I do not recommend using Trusted House Sitters. The sitters on their site cannot be trusted, and you might end up losing your beloved pets and racking up a hefty bill because of it. The photo attached is of my Roo girl. It's going to be hard to get over this one.