Consider yourself warned, THS offers anything but trust! I have now had several negative back to back experiences on THS and I strongly discourage pet or homeowners to entrust their home or beloved fur babies to the so-called "petsitters" on THS.
Unfortunately, THS promotes itself as a cheap way to travel and therefore attracts a disproportionate amount of so-called petsitters that have absolutely no experience other than "I had a pet as a child" type of reference. If you've ever had a pet as a child, you know who took care of it, most likely your parents! Therefore, having a pet as a child does not automatically qualify anyone to be a "Petsitter".
Equally distressing is the fact that I have been told by more than one so-called "Petsitter" that they just use the THS platform to "live rent-free" (yes, I was actually told this on several occasions), and/or as a way to travel on the cheap. Experience has taught me that most (even the most sweet-talking ones that tell you exactly want you want to hear), don't actually plan on taking care of your pets as they go about touring your city, visiting all of the sights/museums/attarctions by day and restaurants by night, all while your pets are left alone except for the occasional walk.
If you're lucky, this will be the least of your problems if not then you can expect to have the overwhelming burden of proof placed on you all for naught, as they always take the "petsitters" side due to "insufficient proof" or claiming that the claim was not submitted within their timeframe. Note that if you have to open a claim that you are expected to translate all supporting documentation into English despite the fact that THS doesn't seem to have a problem collecting membership fees in every language and country that they do business in.

The fundamental flaw of THS is their review system, which allows each party to view the review that was left by the other party PRIOR to submitting their own review allowing them to effectively post to revenge reviews and negative ratings if they don't like the review that's been left for them.
This effectively means that 5* reviews of petsitters on THS cannot be trusted for fear of reprisal by the petsitter against the homeowner. One would think that pet owners would want to warn others and keep the platform safe but the fact is that once a pet owner has several negative reviews it means that it will be extremely difficult to find a petsitter the next time they need one, and this is why you will see that >90% of reviews of petsitters are 5*. If one dares to bring these systemic issues to light on the THS community then posts are immediately removed by the moderator.
THS does nothing to promote trust and safety on their platform because enrolling new memberships from travelers (sorry "petsiiters" as THS likes to call them) is more lucrative. I'm sure that there are extremely caring and professional petsitters however the majority are not on THS, just the opposite.

Dear pet & homeowner, If you love your home, care about your pets and a good relationship with your neibours, delete this app and run from their service as far as you can. I have had a membership for a year and had all kind of bad and worst experiences. The only one that worked was the first sitter and thats why i decided to give it a chance.
The second one broke a window glass that i paid out of my pockets, and the 3rd ond 4rd canceled 2 weeks and 2 days before I was leaving. Both for the same petsitting. Dont let you get fool, the million $ insurance they offer is not what you think and more difficult to claim for it than you may be imagine, and the sitters can cancel on you as late as in the same day you may have your plane tikets to leave the country, with NO PENALTY OR SOEVER FOR THE PETSITTER no matter of it is legitimate or not since even braking the code of conducts of this website doesnt mean a penalty for the pet sitter and in the case they come with a rare legible excuse, it wont be ask for a prove of anything.
Our last wanted-to-be -petsitter raised so many red flags when I told her that my friend would pop up once in a while to pick up the mail and check if she needed something and how my pets were doing that her reaction and behavior made me to get the police involved
To get my home key back from her after she canceled on the sitting 2 days before i was traveling away for 2 months. She was stupid enough to write in the "trusted"housesitter chat that my friend coming by was the reason why she was canceling but not even because of that will makes the company to penalize the sitter. In the other hand, to see how she freaked out for my friend coming to check on her and the mail made me wonder was she was hidding so bad and I relized that this set up is perfect for criminal activities that could be hidden easily in the privacy of petsowner home with their consent, such prostitution, human smuggling or trafficking. It might sounds a bit exagerated but as a foreign (and I am not originally from USA) you are not asked for police clarence from your home country in this site and my last 3 confirmed sitters happens to be Ukrainians leaving in USA, included the last unfit. YOU HAVE NO WARANTEES OF CRIMINAL CLEARANCE PROVIDED FROM THIS SITE.
Sure enough your pet babies will never be able to tell all what they saw.
The help service, emergency and unexistance telephone of contact (wich is a record masching telling you to go to the website and make a complain) WON'T HELP YOU AT ALL in situations like mine to mediate with the sitter when she refuses to talk to you to clear possible misunderstandings or return the key. They won't make sure either that the sitting would be cover by someone else more reliable.
They reched out to me, days after the date of my departure and only because my membership had expired and wanted me to renew it. They told me that for the monetary lost on this trip they strongly recommended me to upgrade my membership to be cover by cancelations.
I got so stressed that i got rushes all over my body and I never found a sitter for my babies for that dates.
I hope my dramatic experience will make aware more pet owners about the lack of protection in this site for the ones who have the most to loose.

They charge a subcription to sitters but forbid them, to charge clients! Sitters are not their employees, and this company has no right to advitise a service by exploiting sitters! So trusted housesitters enriched themselves by charging subcriptions,to sitters and home owners. When animals are involved sitters MUST be remunerated, because it is a huge responsability to care for other people's pets. To be a pet sitter we must be responsable, reliable, truthworthy, experienced, and clean. This is a precious service to home owners who could not go away without this service. Also police check and references prove nothing about a sitter! Anyone can get a positive police check, that does not make them responsible, reliable, clean and trustworthy! References can be written by friends or family. So yes, trustedhousitter is a scam, who make naive home owners believe that they can get a free service. This company exploit sitters who have gas, insurance, phone expenses, subcriptions and daily live bills to pay! People who are looking for a free place to stay, or a vacation, cannot be reliable pet sitters! Now if home owners are too cheap to pay and do not appreciate how precious this service is, then they should hire an homeless person, who needs a roof! It's time that they realize that, they are putting everything that is precious to them, in the hands of a stanger, and responsability, trust, reliability, experience deserves a salary! So, trustedhousitter should only be in the business of finding vacationners and homeless people for people who need a guardien on their property, while they are gone, but not when animals are involved! And if you ask for a salary, they make you lose the job! When I have experience with horses and have to muck stalls, sorry, I want to be paid!

Trusted Housesitters came recommended from several people so I signed up. I have left my dog with strangers on Rover and Wag without problems. I also dogsit for both and have never had a bad review. With THS, I've had 75% negative experiences. 2 people canceled on me last minute, one trashed my house and left $700 worth of damage. THS said "we're sorry - here's two months membership free." Their customer service sucks.

First sit:
1. The girl I first chose had a couple positive reviews and seemed good. She canceled 3 days before I left and I was SCRAMBLING to find another sitter. At this point I bought Premium membership for the $150/night protection.
2. The sitter I found ended up being great and working well.
Second sit:
1. I confirm an older couple. They had great reviews, references, etc. They backed out about a week before because of "a job opportunity in NorCal." I contacted THS, who said this excuse was not "legit" and "violates their TOU" but they did nothing to help me. I managed to find another couple last minute. They were new but were able to get from Austin, TX to LA in a few days so I confirmed them last minute. Big. Freaking. Mistake.

2. The couple ended up being awful. I have ample evidence several neighbors filed noise complaints with my landlord, the people trashed my house and did weed all over my home (I don't smoke so I knew all of it was theirs), and several hundred dollars worth of bedding was ruined from dog pee and poop they didn't clean up/neglected my dog. I also had a friend kick them out and had to pay a new dog sitter $400. The entire house reeked for days of drugs, dog urine, and another strong smell when I returned. They drank a bunch of my alcohol and left a TON of crap all around the house: everything from clothes to lighters to drugs. I found leftover weed behind my mirror, under my bed, in my alarm clock that was thrown on the floor, and on my bed. I have a plastic mattress cover otherwise the mattress (that I bought under 2 months ago) would've been ruined.

When I signed up, I never dreamed something like this would happen. I read their basic TOU - the "we got you covered" (lmao they DO NOT.) I have rental insurance, etc. The damage totaled $700 (and doesn't include the days I spent myself cleaning the house). I also don't believe they intentionally stole anything, but they left in a major hurry ("We only had an hour to pack up our stuff") and I think they accidentally took my towels, scissors, etc. I live in a very small house and based on pictures my friend sent, had their stuff all over my small 700 sq ft apartment for a 10 day stay.
After deducting the $400 for dog care, because it's under their $1,000 policy, Trusted Housesitters doesn't care about what happened. Definitely a major warning: you might be out up to $1000 and Trusted Housesitters does not care about your home.

Three years ago, I had the most horrific experience with Trusted Housesitters- you can read my original review on this site. In September 2020 the world was in chaos and many people were in a state of flux. That did not excuse the appalling behaviour of the homeowner who I signed up to sit for or the disrespectful and shocking treatment I received from Trusted Housesitters. Now that some time has passed, I was interested to contact THS to see how they felt about the incident now. Unbelievably their position is the same! Their attitude and behaviour at the time was totally without accountability and as far as I can see this company are getting worse. There are many negative reviews and there are also reviews and experiences like mine that call into question the legality of this company.

Essentially, I signed up for a 6 weeks sit in the Italian countryside. The sit was not at all as had been presented on several accounts:

When I arrived for the 2-day hand-over to a remote house in the middle of the Italian countryside I was led to believe there would be a husbands and wife there- it was only the man who from the off on a short fuse and very rude. I immediately did not feel safe to be alone with this man and checked myself into an air b & b for two nights, visiting the home regularly so he could show me the set-up. The man was visibly annoyed that I had chosen to find separate accommodation.

Visiting over those two days it transpired that the house had no internet or phone signal. This is something we had discussed on a video call- the owner told me that while I might have some difficulty with Zoom, Skype or streaming, there was a reliable basic internet and phone connection. There was not. I asked the owner about this on several occasions and each time he became more annoyed saying that it must be my phone/computer.

The owner told me that had been a change a plan, that instead of going to Malaysia to be with his wife for 6 weeks he was going to Liverpool, UK to visit friends and he didn't know how long he would be away... or when he would be back.

I really should have left there and then but I had paid a lot of money to get there and somehow foolishly I stayed.

The water from the taps smelled strongly of rotten eggs and sulphur- he had mentioned this, but I had not realised it was so bad. When I did some research, I discovered that the smell was most likely caused by a bacterium in the pipes that was potentially harmful. For this reason, I did not want to shower.

The lack of internet and phone connection continued. I could only make calls or send messages for the nearest town or a remote spot about a 20-minute walk from the house. The house was in a very remote place. Friends and family became increasingly concerned for my welfare. When I messaged the owner, he was by now just always angry and annoyed. He asked concerned friends to check on the home and pets. The friends were surprised that the owner had told me there was an internet connection- there was not a connection in the area they said. They also said that would be drop by every day to check on things.

By now the owner send a message to say that things were obviously not working out and he would arrange to come back. He said that as long as I did not say anything negative about him or his home, he would pay for my return flight. The thought of being alone in that remote house with this angry man without a connection was more than I could bear. On the demands of my family who were by now very concerned I left the sit. The pets - a dog and a cat were well cared for and loved. The garden was well watered, and the home looked after. I know that the friends would be dropping by daily but just to be safe I also contacted the emergency contact and made her aware of the situation. She said that while she could not stay at the home, she could also visit every day.

During this time, I had tried to contact THS several time to no avail. After I left the property, I managed to send an email and was contacted via telephone by Jordan. This man was extremely rude and made me feel like a criminal. He refused to listen to my story and said that because I had left the sit my membership was under review- it did not take long before I was stuck off without getting my membership refunded.

Over the next few weeks, I attempted to share my experience with THS but it was almost as though they did not read my emails. I felt totally ignored, disrespected and betrayed.

I was left shocked and traumatised, in need of emotional support and considering legal action. I did not take legal action mainly because it took a while to get over my experience and because I did not have the financial resources. Three years later, especially in the light of THS continued attitude of zero accountability I have searched on the internet and found that there are many similar cases and, in each case, THS refused to take accountability.

With some perspective, my case boils down to these essential factors-

The homeowner contravened 3 of the codes of conduct set out by THS themselves. While THS maintain that it was me that was in breach of contract because I left the sit early, I refuse to accept this as the clause they are referring to clearly states- a Sitter must not leave a sit earlier than agree unless under exceptional circumstances. Well, if the circumstances I experience are not exceptional I do not know what is. What would it take, an assault or some other crime?

I have felt so disempowered in this situation. I sent a message to the CEO of the company who has also totally ignored me.

If anyone has any suggestions about how to pursue my case legally or in some way expose this travesty, I would like to hear your thoughts. I am also considering creating a support group for people who have, in my opinion, been treated criminally by these people.

If you have read this far, I thank you. I would also like to add that until that point, I had several sits and all of them were excellent with no issues, in fact I only had 5-star ratings on my profile (which I have not been able to access since my account being almost immediately shut down). Financially I lost around £1'200 in this ordeal.

The only apology I received was from the owner's wife whom I never met. She told me that her husband had been under a lot of stress.

Overall, I have enjoyed using THS. It allows me to connect with great sitters from all over the world. I have always been able to find a sitter for all of my listings - so this site definitely works for that!
There are some things that could be made better, however. For instance, one of my sitters' membership was expiring during her week-long sit for me. As soon as her membership expired, she was no longer able to communicate with me through THS at all! Of course, we had previously exchanged personal contact information. But, this made no sense. The sitter, expecially during a sit, should always have access to communication throught the THS site - this helps to protect both the sitter and the owner, as all communication is documented. If something were to go wrong during the sit, then it is vital that THS gets involved and protects both parties - and it actually feels like the company is really letting both owner and sitter down by rejecting access once membership is over. It is very easy for IT to set up the system in such a way that an individual should be able to fully access their account and current sit without having access to new bookings and other parts of THS. This is already what AirBnB does - so it is very simple. What is good about AirBnB is that you feel very protected by the company both as a host and as a guest. The same should apply for THS.

Furthermore - there should be a much higher level of safety and security measurements in place. All sitters should be required to upload their identification, proof of residence, and references before they receive full membership. The vetting process needs to be better. We as owners are inviting strangers into our home - it is always a risk, but with extra security measurements in place by THS, we would feel more comfortable about the situation.
Luckily for me, all my sitters have been excellent - but that is because I thoroughly vetted them prior to deciding to choose them. I have rejected many who I did not feel were a good fit. Not everyone knows how to do this - and a friend of mine had a really bad experience as a result.

THS really needs to be more involved so that the members feel supported and secure in using this service.

Is it a great service - absolutely! Boarding animals in a facility is not only expensive, but stressful to the pets. Allowing them to stay home while you're away is an amazing option, and I love it. With a few small changes, it could be even better.

I wanted to share my terrible experience with TrustedHousesitters so no one else has to go through what I've gone through, and everyone can see what a heartless company they are. We accepted a sitter with 13 5 star reviews. We returned to a destroyed home and a cat clinging to life. Trustedhousesitters did nothing to rectify the situation, and the sitter is still on the site with my review removed, leaving other pet owners at risk.
My cat fell ill during our trip, the sitter took him to the vet and leaves him there. The vets didn't think he would be well enough to go home until after we returned but said they wouldn't feel comfortable sending him home with the sitter anyway (what?). The last 5 days of our trip was full of worry and stress, thinking we would come home to a dead part of the family.
Around this time I find out that she will also be leaving 12 hours (if we have no delays on our trip home) before we get home. She doesn't even tell me, she just asked the best way to get to the airport at 5am, this left me no time to find someone to come check on the other 2 cats.
During our layover I received a WhatsApp message from our sitter informing us she had left, and didn't have time to take the trash our (which you literally have to just place outside on the street) and that a cat knocked over a glass, but she didn't bother to clean it up, leaving shattered glass on the kitchen floor (knowingly).
After an 18 hour journey we arrived home to an absolutely disgusting home. You could smell filth the second you walked in the door. When first walking in you could tell nothing had been wiped down, swept, vacuumed, moped: nothing. Starting to walk you could hear the crunch of cat litter beneath our feet (the litter box is nowhere near the front door). There was cat vomit EVERYWHERE: some spot looked like the vomit "mass" was picked up but nothing was even wiped down (little lone sprayed with a sort of cleaner), many piles of vomit remained untouched, just left to crust and harden. There was vomit on the sofa, the sofa chairs, the guest bed, all of the cat poles, my desk chair, literally EVERYWHERE. The litter box had obviously not been tended to during our absence as there was litter, feces and urine everywhere. We have 2 litter keeping mats that keep litter mess down, these mats were full of urine. The litter was all over the house. When the litter isn't tended to, cats pee outside the box. It looks like they started with all of our mats and then moved to our sofa chairs and guest bed. The vet said my cats respiratory infection was likely due to the deplorable conditions the sitter let our house become. We had to clean for several hours before we could bring our sick cat home.
This sitter is still on the site accepting sits. TH did nothing to help replace our damaged furniture and did not remove the sitter from the site, just removed my review so other homeowners could not be warned.
I had been an advocate for trustedhousesitters for many years, so I now find it my duty to tell everyone that I was mistaken, and this site could put your pets and home at risk.

As a sitter, you're not protected from unfounded libel.

Despite all the lofty words and legal lingo, in practice, anyone can smear you if they feel like it.

So if your looney radar misses a mentally unstable house owner during the intro call, you're left with unbelievable rants on your profile as happened in my case.

To be clear, I've got all verifications (even the overpriced highest tier) and I choose my sits carefully and treat properties and pets like my own. This always made for a satisfying experience on both ends and for multiple owners to repeatedly invite me back.

During this particular sit, everything was peachy. They even thanked me for sitting there. A few weeks later, I was accused of just about everything wrong in the house before I got there.

Right now, Trustedhousesitters keeps that extreme and damaging review published despite overwhelming evidence from my part to the contrary: videos, pictures, chat logs and independent eye-witnesses who I had lots of contact with and came over multiple times.

It's a lot of work getting through to 'Trusted' Housesitters support in the first place.

They list incorrect numbers in their help and mobile app and the numbers that seem to work state they're always busy.

No matter if you call 16:00 hours or 23:00 hours CET. Emails are ignored and even live chat seems to to be disabled at times. (And no, this is not due a technical thing, wrong browser or ad-blocker)

Seeing that other reviewers have similar experiences, it would seem they have fired all but one support person.

After finally getting through after a few days of trying different methods, the most absurd slander was removed but the review kept online. Yes you can reply, and you're forced to. But that means getting in an online debate with an online troll/bully. We've already got Twitter for that - you know, that sheer opposite of a trusted community.

All this is a huge red flag for me. This is supposed to be a safe community of decent people, but instead, you expose yourself to instant online reputation damage even if you've outdone yourself.

The only way to counter this as a sitter is to record everything 24/7 with cameras and all in probability break local privacy laws.

I'm leaving the platform as my trust is gone.

Update:

Hello Doug,

I've emailed the 24th and no reply was given at all, auto-reply from Zen Desk doesn't count.

I then sent 3 more emails on the 24th and 25th. No response at all. Then I tried the support number for my country multiple times and it didn't work. The GB number is impossible to get through.

Only after trying live chat as a last resort on the afternoon of the 25th I managed to get through to a human.

Your agent didn't even download the evidence I had uploaded via WeTransfer as you get a signal someone has downloaded your files.

It was after a week of nagging an attempt was made but by then the download had expired. I then uploaded everything via Google Drive which can't expire. But the agent didn't even bother with this either.

The agent asked me to repeatedly enter the same story which outlines everything. The whole experience was dragged out until I gave up on 6 December. I count 21 emails in the thread.

This review was extremely vile, so I had to reply while the agent said it wasn't so bad.

Meanwhile, a future owner who I had arranged a sit with prior contacted me as they were worried seeing the review.

This almost cost me the sit and would have left me stranded in a foreign country with no roof above my head.

So again, I had to reply.

This stranding has happened to me before with another housesitter platform where unworldly owners decided to cancel a 3-month sit just 1,5 weeks prior to the start.

I had driven there by car for about 2.000 km and was already in the region. This made for an extremely expensive and stressful situation and no refund was given for making the trip down there or getting replacement accommodation which is crazy expensive if you have to arrange it last-minute.

Adding this experience to the one with TH support has made me lose trust in the platform and in housesitting in general as it looked like history repeating itself.

I had an almost perfect record but just one crazy outburst of a mentally unstable person had almost put me in the same position again with a seemingly lack of interest to resolve it from TH side.

Knowing this I'm out.

Thanks to TrustedHouseSitters for making it possible for me to meet Jo & Jason who were searching for a couple to sit for 10 days in their cave home & look after their furry family for them!

Having contacted them beforehand & explained my interest in of grid living, ie solar & wind power, pumping well water & the troglodyte lifestyle they decided to take a chance on me...

Before I met them it was obvious that we had shared interests so it wasn't like meeting strangers at the bus station, out was more like meeting old friends apart from the excitement of the situation itself! 20 minutes later I met their dogs, all 8 of them complete with much tail wagging & vying for attention & the obligatory begging while we ate!

As there was a lot to learn about managing the animals & the small holding Jo & Jason spent some time the next day showing me around, the routines & introducing me to the rest of the animals, ie 2 more dogs (who live outside), their 4 cats, 7 hens & their sweetie of a goat Amber.

There was a lot to remember but their instructions were comprehensive & easily followed, backed up with a well written 'hand book' & various emergency numbers & health records for the animals in addition to the welcome pack they'd sent me before I went out. I threw myself right in as soon as possible as it's easier to learn through doing & meant I'd get all the questions out of the way allowing Jo & Jason to leave for their own holiday confident that I could deal with anything that came up. I was assured by them that they'd rather be contacted if I'd any concerns or worries...

Before they went I had a good couple of days learning the roads & the ropes. I was also given a good map of the area, with the appropriate pages marked, a whole file of tourist information & brochures plus the use of some good phrase books all of which came in handy.

All in all it was an easy time with great company. Jo & Jason are a lovely couple who trusted me with all they hold dear & I had a super time with the animals, got into a routine & it was easy enough to remember everything, fit it all in & get out to explore the area too, meet the locals & improve upon my language skills. My housesit was in quite an isolated area & wouldn't suit everybody, nor would the of grid situation but honestly? I'd do it again in a heartbeat! I had a fabulous time & an grateful that I had such lovely hosts whom I'm sure I'll stay in touch with into the future.

None of my adventure would've been possible without Trusted House Sitters! I found the site away to use & would recommend it thoroughly to anyone who's looking for a change of scenery with the luxury of home comforts & some new furry friends for company...

I really enjoy being part of Trustedhouseandpetsitters.com and the community of caring and reliable sitters. I feel confident I can give my best with their support.