Trusted House SittersReviews 1,000

If you're a homeowner I'm sure this is an excellent service - skip boarding costs and take your pick of eager-to-please animal-lovers offering to take care of your pets. As a sitter, however, I think it's pretty obscene that you have to pay for the honour of trying to sell yourself (as the site recommends, "tell them why you'd be perfect for this sit!") to dozens of homeowners only to be declined, days to weeks later, without any communication or basic acknowledgment that you, a human being, took time over your message and might have plans of your own to think about. Bottom line is there are way more sitters than there are homes, and the entire system operates on the unpaid labour of people who can't afford to pay for private accommodation. Sitters should not be charged, or, at the very least, should be refunded having tried the service if they have not secured a sit.

The idea is not common in the American online community, but I love the idea of an exchange based on trusted (a word that is in their name). Because it costs money to join and is based mostly on trust and personal contact, the site seems to self-select for people who believe in their word. Of course there will be exceptions, but our experience has been good. Also they do not try to police off-site contact, like Airbnb and other sites that make money by serving as intermediaries.

I was thrilled when I heard about Trustedhousesitters as I travel a fair amount and wanted someone to be a live in with my cat. This is my first experience and it was great. I found a 5 star housesitter who was not only great with my cat but left the house spotless.
TrustedHouseSitters gave me all the support I needed. They encouraged me to leave a detailed description of what I needed for my cat and all emergency numbers etc.
I cant wait to use the web site again.

We have used Trusted Housesitters for pet sitting for ~10 years... and ALL our sitters have been superlative. Of course, we vet applicants and think we choose wisely. Not only have our sitters maintained our home/garden, but our cocker spaniels have fallen in love with each couple we've engaged--likely because we have chosen active people who have treated our pups to various outdoor adventures. Our most recent sitters even took our pup to meet Santa and Mrs. Claus! The website is fairly user-friendly and when I have encountered a minor issue (e.g. Something wouldn't open or I had a navigation question), I have always received an email response within 48 hours.

Trusted House Sitters took a brilliant idea and figured how to make it work for their members. They provide help by phone if you are new to the site. Once used to the site, I have found it very easy to use.
It is wonderful to be able to travel without worrying about leaving a beloved pet behind, moping in a boarding kennel. For the sitters, what an opportunity to travel, enjoy animals, stay in comfortable homes or apartments, and not have to pay expensive hotel costs. I have had 2 sitters, and my dog and home both were fine when I returned from my trips.

This was my first time using Trustedhousesitters.com and it ended up being an easy and worthwhile experience. I had many concerns at first; am I ok with a stranger in my house?, What if they don't take good care of our kitties? What if they commit then cancel last minute? I decided to throw caution to the wind, signed up/posted ad, received MANY responses, and after some phone interviews chose a wonderfully sweet person to watch our 3 kitties while we were away for 12 days. The website put me in touch with many great options and the person we ended up choosing was responsible, kind, took great care of our house and communicated with us while we were away. We were able to relax and enjoy our vacation and the best part is we came home to 3 very happy and healthy kitties. I feel very comfortable in using TrustedHouseSitters.com again and might even consider pet/housesitting for others when I travel. Thank you!

Trustedhousesitters.com is an amazing concept, an incredible community, and a pretty good site/app. The concept works, and the pricing is on-point. I love the community and what I can do with it (both find places to stay in other cities and have sitters watch my house & pets when I travel). Honestly it's been a godsend. When I first discovered this site & community, I thought it was too good to be true! But nope, it's real. So glad I discovered Trustedhousesitters.com, and I recommend it to literally every traveler I know.

Their site, however could use some more intuitive user features, and their app needs major development (e.g. Right now you can't edit anything via the app, like your home listing or welcome guide or anything like that. FYI guys, majority of users interact with sites via mobile these days, so your app has to be at least as functional as your site).

Regarding the desktop site: it needs an easier way to manage your past posts, so you can see easily a history of your listings and sits, and who sat for you, etc. Feedback given to you as the homeowner is very buried and hard to find. You cannot set alerts for searches if you're looking for a housesit in a certain city & date range. Also, you don't seem able to edit your Welcome Guide unless there is a live housesit in play... which is ridiculous, I should be able to edit it at any time. If it *is* possible, they make it very hard to find - I'm in web app UX myself so if I can find it, I guarantee others can't either.

I think they would benefit from product feedback surveys or their PMs reaching out to users to see where they can improve to make the process easier, and the community more confident in the team behind the tool. But otherwise, this site/community is great and I highly recommend!

I finally joined TrustedHousesitters over Thanksgiving weekend and we've already completed a local sit to build our profile of rave reviews. I am blown away at the amount of sits being published and love the convenience of having saved settings and immediate notifications for ones that may fit our needs. It has opened up a world of possibilities to travel and also to live affordably. We are grateful for the opportunity and are excited to use it more.

I've had two international sitters flake on me. The first just ghosted me and the second -after I contacted them to arrange a time to meet - informed me that they had opted for another sit that suited them better and that that I would 'manage to get someone else'.

Of course I complained. What were the result of my complaints? For me - incandescent rage and little else. For the people who let me down - who knows? One titanic flaw of the site is that there is absolutely no ability to review sitters - other than those who have completed a sit. It is impossible to inform other users - in an open and honest way - about the people who fail to commit to a sit. There is a wall of silence, so as far as I know the 'non-sitters' can just keep on not showing up for sits, letting people down and ruining vacations... Or maybe they can't? Another huge flaw is that there is never any follow-up to let you know if there had been repercussions on the site for the offenders made by the powers that be.

Currently you are only able to review people who have completed a sit (rather than those who don't and break your heart) - so for all I know, the people who left me hanging are still doing sits and receiving 5 stars. So even though people are 'verified' to sit and reviewed after they have finished - whatever rubbish they choose to dish out beforehand is unrecorded in an effort to protect their personal details.

So be warned! If a sitter fails to materialise, your complaints end with the person you chat with and despite the fact that they are always delightful people - if you've been wronged you have no recourse whatsoever and you never hear what has happened to the 'offenders' either way.

Wow! We cannot find enough adjectives to describe our experience with Trustedhousesitters.com! This company has revolutionized our travel and retirement experience! We just finished our first sit in Frisco, Colorado For Charlotte for her loving and amazing 3 dogs, we also brought our own dog. We had the opportunity to live like a local, enjoying amazing restaurants, skiing, shopping, hikes with the dogs and much more, and at the end of the adventures we had a beautiful fully stocked and cozy (not to mention free) home to come back to while getting cozy with the dogs. I would highly recommend trustedhousesitter.com; as a matter of fact, whenever we had and continue to have the opportunity we tell people about this company. Their reaction is always the same. "WOW! That is great! What is the name of that company?" And then they proceed to write it down or save it in their phone.
We could not be happier!

Such a convenient service to have to have someone look over your pets or to travel & stay places for free just by looking over their pets. I was referred to this service by someone that had used it several times for their cats. I was equally impressed on how easy it was & felt so much better about having someone their to look over my cats versus having someone pop in & feed them once a day. Looking forward to doing some traveling & pet sitting in the future.

My husband and I signed up and became members of Trusted Housesitters about 5 years ago now. We are anxious to retire and start being sitters, but in the meantime, have had 5 or 6 different people/couples/sitters come and stay in our homes while we took vacations. I even bought a membership for my 25 yrs. Old daughter and her boyfriend, so that they can go on vacation and have someone stay in their Apt. To care for their 3 cats. It's been wonderful and we have not had an issue yet! We are very happy to have our freedom to go away and know that our home and pets are well taken care of.