TrustedHouseSitters Experience Section: What's New (2026)

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TrustedHouseSitters rolled out a redesigned sitter profile in its app on June 9, 2026, replacing one long scrolling page with tabs: Application, Reviews, Pet Experience, and Details. When a new application comes in, homeowners now see every applicant's review score, verification badge, and top 3 most relevant experiences side by side before tapping into any single profile. Nothing about how sitters are actually selected has changed, the same information existed before, it's just organized to be scanned and compared far faster than scrolling through a wall of text.

We haven't used the new layout ourselves yet, we're six months into a Portugal sit and haven't applied for anything since it launched, so what follows is built from TrustedHouseSitters' own announcement rather than our own hands-on experience. We think that distinction matters, so we're being upfront about it rather than pretending otherwise.

If you're setting up membership, our 25% discount is worth grabbing regardless of which layout you end up applying through.

This guide covers exactly what's changed, what it means if you're applying for sits, and what it means if you're choosing between applicants.

What Actually Changed

The core information available to homeowners hasn't changed. What's changed is how it's organized and how much of it you see before deciding to look closer.

Previously, a sitter's profile was one long page: application message, reviews, experience, and details all stacked in sequence, requiring a homeowner to scroll through everything to find what mattered most for their specific pets. The new layout splits this into four tabs, so a homeowner reviewing an application for a dog with medication needs can jump straight to Pet Experience rather than scrolling past unrelated content to find it.

The bigger shift is what happens before you even open a single profile. When a new application notification arrives, tapping it now opens a screen showing every applicant for that sit at once, each with their review score, verification badge, and the three experiences THS considers most relevant to that specific listing, displayed upfront. Only if an applicant looks promising do you tap through to their full tabbed profile.

What's in Each Tab

Application. The sitter's personal message is the first thing shown when a homeowner opens a profile, exactly as it was before. This part hasn't moved or shrunk in importance, it's still the first thing seen.

Reviews. Past review history, unchanged from the existing double-blind review system. This tab doesn't change how reviews are generated, only where they sit in the profile layout.

Pet Experience. This is the genuinely new part. It shows a sitter's past pets owned or cared for, and specifically whether they've given medication to animals before. THS is explicit that this data is pulled from verified past sits and locked in their system, not something a sitter can self-report or edit, which matters if you're trying to judge how much weight to give it. The wider redesign launched June 9, 2026, with Pet Experience specifically following over the next month, so if you don't see it yet on a given account, it's likely a rollout timing issue rather than something missing from your profile.

Details. The rest of the standard profile: general information that was always part of a sitter's page, now living in its own tab rather than blended into everything else.

For Sitters: Does This Change Anything About Applying?

Not fundamentally, but it does change what's worth prioritizing in how you write things.

Since a homeowner now sees your review score, verification badge, and your three most relevant experiences before they even open your full profile, those three surfaced experiences are doing more work than they used to. If your profile already describes your relevant experience clearly and specifically, in our case, the various pets we've looked after across 20 sits, this new layout mostly just makes that existing detail easier to find quickly. It's less that new capability was added, and more that what already mattered is now surfaced faster instead of requiring a homeowner to scroll for it.

The application message itself is still the first thing a homeowner reads, and it hasn't lost any of its weight. A specific, warm, well-targeted message still does most of the work of getting selected; the new layout doesn't replace that, it just means the supporting evidence around your message (reviews, badge, experience) is now easier for a homeowner to verify quickly rather than dig for.

For Homeowners: How to Use the New Comparison View Well

The new "all applicants at once" screen is built specifically to make comparing candidates faster, which is genuinely useful when a popular listing pulls in a dozen or more applications.

Use the at-a-glance view (review score, verification badge, top 3 experiences) to filter down to a shortlist, then actually open the full tabbed profile for anyone on that shortlist rather than deciding from the summary screen alone. The summary is designed to help you triage quickly, not to replace reading a sitter's actual application message, which remains the strongest signal of genuine fit. Our guide to what red flags actually look like in a pet sitter is worth reading alongside this, since a strong badge and review score doesn't rule out a poor match for your specific pets.

If your pets have specific needs, particularly medication, the new Pet Experience tab is worth checking directly rather than relying on the application message alone to mention it. Since that data is pulled from verified sit history rather than self-reported, it's a genuinely more reliable signal than anything a sitter could write about themselves.

One small but genuinely thoughtful detail: declining an applicant in the new view prompts you to send a quick message letting them down gently, rather than a bare rejection with no explanation. It costs nothing extra and it's a better experience for the sitter on the other end.

The Downside: Could This Make It Harder for New Sitters?

Here's our honest concern about this update, and it's worth being upfront that this is our own read on it rather than something THS has confirmed: a faster comparison view could make it easier to overlook sitters with zero reviews entirely.

The whole point of the new "all applicants at once" screen is speed, a homeowner scans review scores, verification badges, and top experiences before deciding who's worth a closer look. That's genuinely useful for homeowners facing dozens of applications. But it also means a brand-new profile with no reviews and no sit history has nothing to show in exactly the fields the new view is designed to surface first.

If a homeowner is scanning quickly, a blank Reviews tab and an empty Pet Experience tab could mean an application gets passed over before its message is ever read, even if that message is exactly the kind of specific, thoughtful application that would have won them the sit under the old, slower-to-scroll layout.

This matters because we know from our own experience that a strong message can absolutely win a sit with zero reviews, we got our very first sit that way. Our concern is that this update could quietly shift the odds against new sitters getting that same chance, simply by making it easier to triage on review count and experience before the message ever gets seen.

To be fair to THS, the flip side is real too: homeowners genuinely benefit from being able to identify a strong match faster, and a faster process arguably means more sits get confirmed with less friction for everyone. We just think it's honest to name the risk alongside the benefit. Time will tell how this actually plays out for sitters starting from zero, and we'll update this article if we see clear evidence either way.

How This Compares to Other Platforms

THS isn't the first platform to organize applicant information this way. Nomador has run a comparable concept for a while through its badge and compliments system, specific, scannable qualities awarded after a sit, rather than a single number or a page of prose to read through. The philosophy is similar even if the mechanics differ: reduce the effort it takes to compare candidates by surfacing specific, verified qualities upfront instead of requiring a full read-through every time.

A Practical Note: How We Actually Apply

One small thing worth mentioning, since the app is now central to how this new layout works: we do our initial browsing on our phones, sending listings back and forth to each other to review, but we still complete the actual application from a computer.

The reason is simple. We have pre-written message templates that we adapt for each listing, and editing text on a laptop is faster and less error-prone than doing it on a phone keyboard. The new profile layout is app-exclusive for homeowners reviewing applicants, but nothing about applying itself requires using the app specifically, so if a computer workflow suits you better for writing messages, there's no downside to sticking with it.

Have you seen the new layout yet, either as a sitter or reviewing applicants as a homeowner? We'd like to hear how it's actually working in practice, drop it in the comments below.

Conclusion

This update doesn't change the underlying criteria THS uses, or what actually gets a sitter selected. It changes how quickly that information can be scanned and compared, four tabs instead of one long scroll, and a summary view for homeowners triaging multiple applicants at once. The fundamentals are unchanged: a strong, specific application message still does the heavy lifting, and a clean review history still confirms it. This update just means all of that is faster to see.

The one open question we'd flag: whether this makes it meaningfully harder for brand-new sitters with no reviews to get their message read at all. We think it's a real risk worth watching, even if the update is a clear net positive for everyone with an established history.

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. If you have questions about how this affects your own applications or listings, DM us @housesittersguide, we answer everyone.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is the new TrustedHouseSitters profile layout available on the website too?

  No. It's exclusively on the mobile app, according to THS's own announcement. The website retains the previous layout.

• Does the new layout change how sitters are actually selected?

  No. The underlying criteria haven't changed, the application message, review history, and experience are the same factors that mattered before. What's changed is how quickly that information can be scanned and compared, not what's being evaluated.

• What is the Pet Experience tab and is it available now?

  It shows a sitter's past pets owned or cared for, and whether they've given medication to animals previously, pulled from verified sit history rather than self-reported. THS announced the wider profile redesign on June 9, 2026, with Pet Experience rolling out over the following month, so it should be fully live by now, though gradual rollouts can vary slightly by account.

• Can a sitter edit or add to their own Pet Experience section?

  No, according to THS's own description, this information is pulled directly from verified past sits and locked in their system, not something a sitter can self-report or edit directly.

• Does the new layout make it harder for sitters with no reviews to get noticed?

  Possibly, though this is our own assessment rather than something THS has confirmed. The new comparison view is built for speed, surfacing review scores and experience before a homeowner opens a full profile, which could mean a brand-new profile with no history gets scanned past before its application message is read. A strong, specific message has always been able to win a sit with zero reviews, our concern is that this update may make that harder by shifting the odds toward triaging on experience first.

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