Closing Up Your Home – Going Away for the Holidays

Oh, it is the dream of a lifetime! You’re going to spend the whole month with your family. You can’t wait to shut up your house and go, go, go. Before you leave, though, you have a few things to do. Let’s see. Pack the suitcases, take the plants to your friend’s house and…Oh, yes. Prepare your home for your absence.

The first thing to keep in mind when you are going away for a long period of time is that you don’t want your home to look invitingly empty. Some people hire house sitters. Others set lights on timers and stop the newspaper and mail delivery so people can’t tell at first glance that the family is away. Still others ask the police to ride by the house every day to be sure everything is okay.

Next, you’ll need to think about what would happen if your pipes spring a leak or something overflows. Many insurance agents and handymen recommend turning off the water supply at the main valve, shutting off the water heater and turning off the ice maker in the fridge if you are going away for long periods of time. Some recommend going a step further and draining all pipes and winterizing the house with antifreeze in the traps. Other people say they are concerned about breaking valves and that they prefer to have a neighbor check for problems with toilets or sinks once a day and simply use the vacation setting on their hot water heater and cut off the washer’s water supply.

After you take care of any potential water issues, take a look at your fridge. Unless you want to come home to an incredible assortment of mold, you’ll want to clean anything perishable out of the fridge. If you’re going to be gone for a really long time, you may want to check into emptying the fridge, cleaning it, turning it off and propping open the doors to avoid problems with mold on the fridge itself. (I have looked into an empty fridge that wasn’t emptied, cleaned and propped and…well, words failed me at the time and they still fail me. You’d have to see it for yourself.

Once you have those issues taken care of, you’ll want to go through the house from top to bottom to make sure everything is turned off, unplugged, locked and/or handed off to someone who can care for it until you return. It is so sad to come home to a dead houseplant that was alive and vigorously growing when you left because you forgot to give it to someone to care for.

Do you have any tips for shutting up a house when you’re going away for the holidays?

Photo: SXC