Racist Comments During a House Sit Interview: What to Do

Home > Blog > Racist Comments During a House Sit Interview: What to Do

This is not legal advice. We are not lawyers. The information here reflects our own opinion and research into how platform policies generally work. Report any serious concern directly to the platform involved, and consult a professional if you believe the situation warrants it.

Racist comments during a house sit interview aren't a difference of opinion to be respected neutrally, they're a genuine red flag, and reporting them is the right call. TrustedHouseSitters' own Code of Conduct, which every member explicitly agrees to when joining, states plainly that members will be respectful "regardless of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age." Reporting isn't just doing something for the record. It's flagging an actual violation of a pledge the person agreed to, and this isn't a THS-specific standard. Every reputable house sitting platform operates on the same basic premise: a community built on trust has no room for this kind of behavior, regardless of which specific platform you're using. One thing worth separating clearly: a sitter's housing situation, however unstable, is a completely different question from whether their behavior was acceptable, and shouldn't be a reason to hesitate.

This came up in a real, recent forum thread that stuck with us: a homeowner met a prospective sitter over video, and the sitter made unprompted, disturbing comments about another racial group, entirely unrelated to anything about the sit itself.

The homeowner and her husband couldn't go through with it, understandably, but her husband hesitated about actually reporting it, worried about the sitter's own housing situation. That hesitation is worth addressing directly, because we think it's based on conflating two things that genuinely aren't related.

This guide covers what platform policy actually says, why housing circumstances shouldn't factor into the decision, and where this kind of thing tends to surface in the process in the first place.

We've completed 20 sits across 12 countries with TrustedHouseSitters, and while we've never encountered anything approaching outright racism ourselves, this comes up often enough in community discussion that it deserves a direct, honest answer rather than being left ambiguous.

Why This Isn't the Same as Differing Political Views

We've written before about navigating different political views during a house sit, and the framing there was deliberately about neutrality and mutual respect, since reasonable people genuinely disagree on politics, and that disagreement doesn't need to be resolved during a sit.

This is a different category entirely, and it's worth being precise about the distinction. The closest thing we've personally experienced was a homeowner with a strongly stated political view, visible even in the merchandise they wore around the house.

That didn't bother either of us. People are entitled to express themselves, and if a homeowner's views genuinely made us uncomfortable, the simple answer would be not to apply, no drama, no report necessary.

Racism is different. It's not a viewpoint to be tolerated as part of someone's self-expression, it's targeting people based on who they are, and most platforms, THS explicitly among them, have already drawn that line themselves rather than leaving it to individual interpretation.

What Platform Policies Actually Say

This isn't unique to one platform, it's the standard basis on which house sitting as a whole is meant to operate: a community of strangers trusting each other with homes and animals simply doesn't function without a baseline of mutual respect. We've verified THS's specific wording directly, since it's the platform we use, and its Code of Conduct is a real, formal document every member agrees to at signup, not a vague community guideline.

It states directly that members will "be respectful to the entire TrustedHousesitters community, regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age," and separately commits to communicating "clearly and respectfully with the entire community... regardless of" the same list of protected characteristics.

That means a member making unprompted derogatory comments about another racial or ethnic group during a video call isn't just behaving badly, they're violating a specific commitment they made when they joined the platform. THS's dedicated Resolutions Team handles complaints and member disputes, and this is squarely the kind of situation that process exists for.

Should You Actually Report It?

Yes, and it's worth being honest about why, even if you suspect nothing dramatic will happen as a result.

A single report may not lead to immediate, visible action, THS's process typically reviews evidence and looks for patterns rather than acting on one account in isolation. But that's exactly why reporting matters: it creates a formal record.

If the same person behaves this way with other homeowners, and there's real reason to think this kind of behavior doesn't happen in isolation, a documented pattern gives the platform something concrete to act on that a single unreported incident never could. Reporting isn't really about guaranteeing an outcome. It's about not being the reason a pattern goes unnoticed.

We haven't independently verified the exact wording used by every other platform, terms vary and change over time, but the underlying principle holds across all of them. Nomador, Aussie House Sitters, and every other established platform in this space operate on the same fundamental premise that made house sitting possible in the first place: a stranger caring for your home and animals only works if the whole community is genuinely trustworthy and respectful.

If you're on a different platform and unsure of its specific policy, it's worth checking directly, but the expectation itself doesn't change based on which platform you happen to be using.

Our full guide to the TrustedHouseSitters dispute and complaints process covers exactly how to file a report properly, what evidence to include, and what actually happens once you do.

Housing Instability Is a Completely Separate Question

Here's where we want to push back directly on a hesitation that comes up in situations like this: the idea that someone's difficult housing situation should factor into whether you report discriminatory behavior.

We say this with real standing on the subject. Caro and I live in a campervan full-time. We have no fixed address, and by a lot of conventional measures, our housing situation is genuinely unstable.

It's also exactly what makes us flexible, reliable sitters, we can adjust to a homeowner arriving early or staying away longer without the constraints a fixed lease or a rigid schedule would create. Plenty of excellent sitters on these platforms are in a similar position, un-housed by conventional standards but genuinely dependable and trustworthy in practice. Housing instability says nothing on its own about whether someone is a good or bad sitter, or a good or bad person.

What that means here is that a sitter's housing situation is simply irrelevant to the actual question. Whether someone has secure housing and whether they made unprompted racist comments during an interview are two completely separate facts about them, and conflating the two, feeling reluctant to report because "she might not have anywhere else to go", ends up protecting the wrong thing. The behavior itself is what matters, not the person's broader circumstances.

Our guide to what house sitters wish homeowners knew touches on a related point worth remembering here: a sitter's circumstances, financial or otherwise, say very little about the quality of care they're capable of providing. Our guide to getting your first sit without prior experience is a good example of the opposite pattern, plenty of genuinely excellent sitters start from a position that looks precarious on paper.

Where This Usually Surfaces First

In our experience, someone with genuinely extreme or prejudiced views tends to reveal it during the pre-sit video call more clearly than anywhere else in the process. Written messages get edited and reconsidered. A live conversation doesn't offer the same filter, and people's actual language, the specific words they reach for, tends to say more than they realize in the moment.

This is exactly why paying close attention during that call matters beyond just confirming logistics. If something said during that conversation feels genuinely off, not just a different opinion, but something that crosses into targeting a group of people, that's worth trusting your own reaction to rather than second-guessing it afterward.

Our guide to what to ask a homeowner before you house sit covers the practical side of that same call, and it's worth treating both the logistics and your own gut reaction to how someone talks as equally important data points.

For Sitters: The Same Principle Applies in Reverse

This isn't only a homeowner-facing situation. If a homeowner says something discriminatory during your own interview or video call, the same standard applies, and the same reporting process is available to you.

You're not obligated to continue an application, accept a sit, or stay quiet about it out of politeness. Our guide to red flags in homeowner language covers other warning signs worth watching for during this same stage of the process, and this belongs firmly on that list.

Have you encountered anything like this yourself, on either side of the exchange? We'd like to hear how you handled it, drop it in the comments below.

If a homeowner's listing or messages raise concerns before you even get to a call, our guide to house sitting scams covers a different but related category of warning signs worth knowing about early in the process.

Why This Actually Matters to Us

Here's the part worth saying plainly, beyond the reporting process itself. House sitting works precisely because it's built on trust between people who've often never met before, and that only functions when the community actually protects that trust rather than quietly tolerating what undermines it.

We genuinely love what this lifestyle has given us: the chance to move from country to country, house to house, meeting entirely different cultures and people along the way. It's a privilege, and it's one we don't take for granted.

That privilege only exists because enough people, homeowners and sitters alike, choose to add to this community rather than create division within it. Every sit we've done has worked because a stranger decided to trust us, and we decided to be worthy of that trust in return. Protecting that, actively, not just passively, is part of what makes this whole model worth having.

That's really the deeper reason reporting matters here. It's not about punishment for its own sake. It's about keeping a genuinely rare kind of trust intact for everyone still willing to extend it.

The Bottom Line

Racist comments during a house sit interview aren't a difference of opinion to be respected the way genuinely differing political views can be. They're a real violation of the standard most platforms, THS explicitly, have already committed to enforcing. Report it.

Don't let a sitter's or homeowner's difficult personal circumstances become a reason to hesitate, that's a separate question entirely from whether their behavior was acceptable. And trust what a video call reveals, since it's often the clearest window into who you're actually about to trust with a home, pets, or your own two weeks somewhere.

Caro and I have completed 20 house sits across 12 countries, driven 19,000km across Europe in our 1998 VW T4, and saved over $26,500 in accommodation costs over three years of house sitting through TrustedHouseSitters. If you're dealing with something like this, DM us @housesittersguide, we answer everyone.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Should I report a house sitter who made racist comments during an interview?

  Yes. This isn't a matter of respecting a differing opinion, it's a violation of the platform's own Code of Conduct, which explicitly commits members to respectful behavior regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, and other protected characteristics. Reporting creates a formal record even if no immediate action is visible.

• Does TrustedHouseSitters actually prohibit discriminatory behavior?

  Yes, explicitly. Every member agrees to a Code of Conduct at signup that states they will be respectful to the entire community "regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age."

• Should a sitter's unstable housing situation affect whether I report discriminatory comments?

  No. These are two separate questions. A person's housing circumstances say nothing about whether their behavior was acceptable, and shouldn't factor into the decision to report genuinely discriminatory conduct.

• Does this apply if a homeowner is the one making discriminatory comments?

  Yes. The same standard and reporting process applies regardless of which side of the exchange the comments come from. Sitters aren't obligated to continue an application or stay quiet out of politeness.

Related Guides