TrustedHousesitters August Update: Five Changes Sitters and Owners Should Know

9 Sept

From a new private post-sit question to better maps, photo galleries and review history, here’s what’s changed recently on TrustedHousesitters.

There’s another batch of platform updates, and this time there’s a bit more to talk about than simply moving a button around the app.

The August updates include changes to post-sit reviews, archived conversations, review history, maps and photo galleries. Some are tiny improvements, while others could actually change how sitters and homeowners use the platform.

And, as always, some of them raise a few interesting questions.

So, let’s take a look at what’s changed.

What’s Actually Changed?

TrustedHousesitters has introduced several updates across the app and website, with the general theme seeming to be making the platform more transparent, easier to navigate and better at gathering feedback.

The five changes are:

A new private question after completing a sit, asking whether you would recommend it to others
Archived conversations now automatically cancel or decline pending applications and invites
All completed sits now appear in your review timeline, even without a review
An upgraded map experience for browsing sits by location
A new photo gallery experience for viewing sit photos

Some of these will probably make you say, “Oh, that’s useful.”

Others might have you wondering why they’ve been introduced and what TrustedHousesitters plans to do with the information being collected.

Let’s dig into each one.

A New Question After Your Sit

One of the more interesting changes is the addition of a question at the end of the review process.

When you complete your public review, you’ll now also be asked whether you would recommend the sit to other members.

The important bit here is that this isn’t another public star rating or a comment that suddenly appears on the homeowner or sitter’s profile.

Your answer is only shared with the TrustedHousesitters team.

It won’t be posted publicly, and it won’t be shared directly with the pet parent.

According to TrustedHousesitters, the purpose is to help the team better understand members’ experiences and keep community standards high.

And I actually think this is one of the more interesting additions in this update.

Why ask sitters this separately?

There’s a difference between writing a public review and answering a private question about whether you’d recommend a sit.

A public review has an audience.

You know the homeowner, sitter or future members might read it, so even if you had a few niggles, you might soften your wording or leave certain things out.

A private recommendation question could give TrustedHousesitters a slightly different picture.

For example, perhaps a sitter had a perfectly pleasant experience but wouldn’t actually recommend the sit because the expectations were very different from the listing.

Or perhaps a homeowner was happy with a sitter’s pet care but wouldn’t recommend them for future sits because of communication issues.

Those nuances don’t always make it into a public review.

The big question, of course, is what TrustedHousesitters will eventually do with this information.

For now, we’re told it’s being used to understand the sit experience and maintain community standards.

It could potentially become a useful way for the platform to identify patterns that aren’t obvious from public reviews alone.

Archived Messages Now Have Consequences

The next change is much more straightforward, but it’s one that sitters and homeowners should probably know about.

If you archive a conversation with another member, any pending applications or invites associated with that conversation will now automatically be declined or cancelled.

That’s worth remembering before you start tidying up your inbox.

Perhaps you’ve been chatting to several homeowners about potential sits, you’ve made your decision and you want to archive the conversations you’re no longer interested in.

Previously, archiving a conversation might have felt like little more than housekeeping.

Now, it can also affect anything that is still pending.

So before hitting that archive button, it’s worth checking whether there’s an outstanding application or invitation attached to the conversation.

The Review Timeline Got More Useful… But There’s a Catch

Previously, your review history could give the impression that you’d completed fewer sits than you actually had if the other member hadn’t left a review. That’s now changing.

All completed sits will appear in your review timeline, even when the other member hasn’t written a review.

However, there’s an important distinction here. Rather than simply showing the month, location and pet information, a sit without a review will now make it clear that “no review was left.”

And I’m not completely sure that’s a positive thing for sitters.

Because while you might think no review is better than a bad review, on a profile where trust is everything, I’d argue that a missing review can sometimes look almost worse. A future homeowner could see “no review was left” and immediately wonder why.

The problem is that there can be perfectly genuine reasons why no review exists, and they aren’t necessarily anything to do with the quality of the sit.

In fact, this happened to us very recently.

We completed a five-month sit that ended in late July 2026, and the homeowner’s TrustedHousesitters account expired on the very same day the sit finished. Because her account had expired, she was unable to leave us a review.

From our side, however, the sit appeared in our timeline as “the homeowner didn’t leave a review.”

That felt pretty frustrating. We had completed a five-month sit, done everything we were supposed to do, and yet our profile could potentially give the impression that the homeowner had simply chosen not to review us. It’s something we had absolutely no control over.

We contacted TrustedHousesitters about it, and after LOTS of frustrating back and forward emails, they provided a link that allowed the homeowner to leave us an external reference instead.

She was able to write a lovely review, which now appears on our profile and gives future homeowners a much better picture of our experience on the sit.

The only difference is that, because it was submitted as an external reference, it doesn’t have the “verified” tick alongside it.

So while I think having every completed sit visible is a definite improvement, I do think TrustedHousesitters needs to be careful about how missing reviews are presented.

There are lots of reasons why someone might not leave a review: an expired membership, forgetting, technical issues, circumstances changing after the sit, or simply not getting around to it.

A blank review shouldn’t automatically raise a question mark over the sitter.

For sitters in particular, this is one update I’d keep an eye on. Having your completed sits visible is great, but having “no review was left” attached to one could potentially work against you when the reason for the missing review has nothing whatsoever to do with your performance.

I hope TrustedHousesitters will think about the context behind those missing reviews, because sometimes there really is no story behind them at all.

Better Maps

If you regularly search for sits by location, you’ll probably appreciate this one.

TrustedHousesitters says it’s been working on a faster and more reliable map experience when exploring sit listings by location in the app.

This is apparently the first of several map improvements still to come.

For people who use TrustedHousesitters to plan longer-term travel like us, rather than simply searching for their next sit, maps are pretty important.

If you’re trying to spend three months in a particular part of a country, for example, being able to see what’s available geographically can be much more useful than scrolling through a long list of individual listings.

I’m particularly interested to see what the other planned map improvements look like, because there’s quite a lot of potential here.

The Photo Gallery Has Had a Makeover

And finally, we have a much more visual update.

The photo gallery has been upgraded to make it easier to get a feel for a sit before applying.

On desktop, you can now view a selection of photos at once, while on mobile you can swipe through the gallery more easily and tap individual images to see them full-screen and at higher quality.

This might not sound revolutionary, but photos are hugely important when you’re deciding whether a sit is right for you.

As a sitter, I’m not just looking at the pets.

I’m looking at the house, garden, sleeping arrangements, surrounding area and general feel of the place.

And when you’re potentially committing to living somewhere for several months, those details matter.

A better gallery makes it easier to spot the things that might influence your decision before you start messaging a homeowner.

What Do I Think of the August Updates?

Overall, I think this is a pretty positive batch of updates.

There’s nothing here that completely changes how TrustedHousesitters works, but several of the changes improve the information available to members.

The ones I’ll be paying most attention to are the new private recommendation question and the expanded review timeline.

A Quick Summary of the August Updates

If you don’t fancy reading the whole thing again, here’s the short version:

For sitters and homeowners, the August changes mean:

You can now be asked privately whether you’d recommend a completed sit.
Your answer to that recommendation question isn’t published publicly or sent directly to the pet parent.
Archiving a conversation will automatically decline any pending application or cancel any pending invite connected to it.
Completed sits will appear in your review timeline even when no review was left.
The new review timeline will show the month, location and pet information when there’s no written review.
Maps in the app have been upgraded to be faster and more reliable, with further improvements apparently on the way.
Photo galleries have been improved, including easier browsing and higher-quality full-screen images.

Will These Changes Make a Difference?

Some of these updates are definitely more visible than others, but collectively they seem to be pushing the platform towards more information and transparency around the sit experience.

I think that’s a good thing.

House and pet sitting relies heavily on trust. You’re letting someone into your home, or you’re moving into a stranger’s home to look after their pets.

Reviews are a huge part of that trust, but reviews can only ever tell part of the story.

Having a clearer record of completed sits, better access to listing photos and additional private feedback for TrustedHousesitters could give the platform a much broader picture of what’s happening within its community.

The interesting question is what happens next.

Because if TrustedHousesitters is collecting more information about how members actually experience sits, I suspect we’ll eventually see that information influencing other parts of the platform too.

For now, though, I’ll be interested to see how these changes settle in.

Over to You

I always find these updates fascinating because it’s the smaller changes that can sometimes tell us the most about where a platform is heading.

And I’m particularly curious about that new private “would you recommend this sit?” question.

Will it simply help TrustedHousesitters monitor the overall experience, or could it eventually influence how members or listings are assessed on the platform?

We’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear what you think about the August updates.

Which one are you most pleased to see, and is there anything you think TrustedHousesitters should change next? Comment and let me know 💬

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FAQs

Can TrustedHousesitters see my private answer about whether I recommend a sit?

Yes. The new recommendation question is specifically designed to be shared with the TrustedHousesitters team, rather than being published as part of your public review. The update says it won’t be shared directly with the pet parent or posted publicly.

If I archive a TrustedHousesitters conversation, can I still apply for that sit later?

The August update means you need to be careful with pending applications. When a conversation is archived, any pending application or invite associated with it is automatically declined or cancelled. If you may still want to pursue the sit, it’s better not to archive the conversation while things are still pending.

Will a completed TrustedHousesitters sit appear on my profile if the other person never leaves a review?

Yes. That’s one of the changes introduced in this update. Completed sits will now appear in the review timeline even when the other member hasn’t written a review. In that situation, the timeline will show basic information including the month, location and pet information rather than a written review.

Do TrustedHousesitters’ new maps show the exact address of a sit?

The August update is about making the map experience faster and more reliable when browsing listings by location. It doesn’t state that the new map feature changes the privacy rules around homeowners’ exact addresses. As always, sitters should rely on the listing information and conversations with the homeowner for the precise location and address details of a sit.

Jessica Holmes