A house sitting application can be passed over for reasons that were settled before the homeowner properly read it: a profile that contradicts something the listing asked for, dates that do not quite line up, or a more specific answer sitting further up the same inbox. None of that is a judgement on how good you are with animals, and all of it can be changed before you send the next one.
The part that stings is the silence. Applications rarely come back with a reason attached, so you can send a dozen careful messages and learn nothing from any of them. Here is the homeowner's side of the decision.
The homeowner is removing sitters, not ranking them
On Sitterly, applying to a sit is a direct message. You open a listing, press Apply to Sit, and your message arrives in the homeowner's inbox with your profile attached. There is no application form, no cover letter box, and no algorithm deciding whose message sits at the top.
So the decision runs in two passes. The first is a quick removal against the things the homeowner specified when they published the listing. The second is a real read of whoever survived it. Sitters write for the second pass and get cut in the first.
There is a second door, and most sitters forget it exists. Homeowners can browse the sitter directory themselves, filter it by location, availability, age group, pet experience and police check, and send a booking request to somebody who never applied. A complete profile can be picked with no application at all. An unfinished one is not so much rejected as never returned in the results.
Every box on the listing is a filter your profile has to clear
A homeowner publishing a sit sets the terms inside the listing itself, from the dates through to whether a police check is required and whether the animals need medication. Those are not preferences written for atmosphere. They are the shortlist.
| The listing says | What the homeowner has already decided | What has to be true on your side |
|---|---|---|
| Police check required | They will not read a sitter without one | The check complete and showing on your profile, not promised in the message |
| Couples welcome to apply | Whether a second adult may stay | If two of you are coming, say so in the first two lines, never at the meet and greet |
| Sitter may bring their own pet | Whether another animal enters their home | Your own pets declared on your profile. An undisclosed dog is a fair reason for a homeowner to end a sit early |
| My pet has medical needs | They want somebody confident with medication, not willing to learn | The medication box ticked only if true, plus a line naming what you have given before |
| My pet has behavioural challenges | They want somebody who has handled that behaviour before, not somebody meeting it for the first time | A specific example. A reactive kelpie on a lead, a cat that bites when overstimulated |
| Garden or plant care required | Part of this sit happens outside | Address it directly. If the listing asks for it, answer it |
| Dates not flexible | The dates are a booked flight, not a suggestion | Their exact dates quoted back, never roughly that window |
Read your own profile beside a listing before you apply. Where the listing asks for something your profile does not claim, you have two honest options: fix the profile, or name the gap in your first paragraph and say what you have instead. Hoping nobody checks is not one of them, because the profile sits right beside your message.
The two minute test
Open a listing you were ignored for and read it beside your own profile. Count the things the homeowner asked for that your profile does not mention anywhere. That number is usually the whole explanation.
The first two lines decide whether your profile is opened
A homeowner with a flight booked is scanning an inbox, not studying candidates, so the opening sentence does the work a subject line does in email. Four things belong there: the exact dates, where you are by suburb, the listing's hardest requirement answered first rather than last, and an offer to meet, in person if you are close and by video call if you are not. A sitter in Preston applying to a sit in Coburg is a different proposition to one who is flexible and happy to travel, and a homeowner in Bendigo or on Hobart's eastern shore reads that difference immediately.
What does not belong is the sentence most ignored applications open with, some version of having loved animals all your life. Everybody writes it, so it separates nobody, and your history belongs on the profile behind the message anyway.
Applications land in an inbox in the order they arrive, so applying the day a sit appears puts you in front of a shorter queue than applying to the same listing a week later. And because reviews only appear once a booking is marked completed, your reply rating, built from how quickly you respond, is one trust signal a sitter with no bookings can build immediately, and the only one that needs nothing submitted or paid for.
The same application, written twice
Both messages below are illustrations, not anything a member sent. Here is the version that gets no reply.
“Hi, I am very interested in your house sitting listing. I am an animal lover and have had pets my whole life. I am reliable, clean and trustworthy, and I would take great care of your home and your pets. Let me know if you would like to know more!”
None of it is untrue and none of it is usable. It would fit any listing in the country, which is the problem. Now the same sitter answering the same listing.
“Hi, I would like to apply for your sit from 14 to 28 January in Coburg. I live in Preston, ten minutes away, so I can come and meet the cats before you fly out. I have given a diabetic cat twice daily insulin for two years, so the 7am and 7pm doses in your listing are an ordinary day for me rather than something I would be learning. I work from home three days a week, so they would not be alone for long. My ID verification and police check are both complete on my profile. Happy to do a video call this week, and I have nothing else booked until March.”
The second message claims no more experience than the first. It answers the listing. It names their suburb and yours, deals with the hardest requirement by sentence three, makes meeting easy, and ends with something the homeowner can act on. Using the pets' names from the listing costs four seconds and shows you read past the photos.
The RSPCA's guidance on planning for pets when you go away, published 22 December 2020, tells owners to give the sitter the pet's vet records and their vet's contact details. Asking for those before you are asked to have them shows you understand what is being handed over.
Some of the reasons you missed out have nothing to do with you
- The sit was already filled. Listings stay visible after a homeowner has stopped reading them.
- Their plans changed, the trip moved, or a family member offered to stay.
- They invited somebody from the sitter directory instead of choosing from the applications.
- You applied in a quiet month. There is no published figure for how many sitters compete for an Australian listing at any time of year, but our guide to getting a first sit with no reviews sets out which weeks of the calendar work in a new sitter's favour.
- The homeowner never came back to the platform. Nothing in that one is yours to fix.
Homeowners are also deciding with very little to go on, and Australian guidance tells them to be careful. Consumer Protection WA's page on house, pet and baby sitting services, last updated 21 November 2024, is written for people engaging a paid sitting business rather than an individual sitter, and most of it is about the business itself. Two of its points carry across to a sit where no money changes hands: it tells readers to verify that the business has obtained National Police Certificates for its employees, and to clarify what their own insurance covers when somebody is working in their home. The caution you keep meeting is usually advice they were given, not an opinion about you.
What to change before your next application
- Finish the profile. Photo, bio, suburb, availability days, pet types, how many animals you can take, whether you have your own, and what you can genuinely do with medication and behaviour.
- Complete the verification you are willing to complete. The Australian Federal Police charges $56 for a National Police Certificate and describes it as a summary of your offender history in Australia. Homeowners can filter the directory by police check, so a profile without one is invisible in that search rather than less appealing.
- Line up two references you can name, ideally including a former landlord or property manager. Our guide to building house sitting references from scratch covers how to ask for one worth reading.
- Rewrite your opening two lines so they could not be pasted into another listing. If they could, it is not an application.
- Answer the hardest requirement before anything else, including when the answer is that you have not done it before.
- Offer the meet and greet or the video call in the first message, and reply to their first question the same day.
- Apply the day a sit appears rather than leaving it for the weekend.
What Sitterly does and does not do
Sitterly supports the connection. Homeowners and sitters remain responsible for their own arrangements. Verification is optional and started by the member rather than applied to everyone, and completing a tier is not an endorsement of that person by the platform.
Questions Australian sitters ask about applications
- How many applications should I be sending?
- There is no honest published figure and anybody quoting one is guessing. Fit beats volume. Five applications to listings whose requirements you clearly meet will do more than thirty sent to everything within five hundred kilometres, because most of the thirty are removed before they are opened.
- Do I need a police check to be picked?
- It is not compulsory, but some listings require one and homeowners browsing the sitter directory can filter for it, so an unchecked profile is excluded from those results before anyone judges it. A check confirms the outcome of a criminal history check on a given date. It is not a character assessment, and Sitterly does not vet its members: verification is optional and started by the member.
- Is it worth applying when the listing says an experienced sitter is preferred?
- Yes, if you answer it head on and briefly. A homeowner may write that because of a specific behaviour they need handled, so what convinces them is a comparable situation you have handled, not reassurance that you learn fast.
Your next application
Rejection with no reason attached is the least informative thing in this process, because the reason is usually sitting in the listing you already read. Open the sits that are live now, pick three whose requirements you meet exactly, and write two lines to each that could not belong to any other listing. If you have not joined, create a sitter profile and finish it before you send the first one.
