Common Sense Ways to Protect Your Home Before Your Next Trip

Vacation Destination

Whether you’re taking that overdue summer vacation or traveling for business, an empty home can be an invitation to criminals. You might worry about other problems while you’re gone, such as a fire or plumbing issue. When you’re vacation planning, make some time to plan to keep your home safe. Here’s a checklist that can help you prep your home for a trip.

Make Your Home Look Occupied

If it appears as if someone is living in your home, it won’t be as inviting to burglars.

• Have someone pick up your mail and newspaper or have them stopped while you’re gone. Or, arrange to have someone housesit (or petsit) in your absence!
• Park your car inside the garage or have someone move the car occasionally. You could also ask a neighbor to park in your driveway.
• Install motion-activated floodlights. Outdoor lighting is the enemy of thieves.
• Arrange lawn care or snow removal while you’re gone.
• Notify your home security company. In some communities, you can let the police know that you’ll be out of town.
• Ask a neighbor to take your trash can out before garbage pickup and to take it up to your home after pickup.
• Leave emergency numbers with the person who is watching your home.
• Leave your window coverings as you normally would. Take a walk outside to see how they look.
• Set a timer on your bedroom light that turns it on about an hour before you normally go to bed and then turns it off at your bedtime.

Shut Off Appliances and Plumbing

Flooding and electrical fires are a real possibility anytime, but when you’re away from home there’s no one to deal with the issue quickly. You can take precautions that increase home safety and give you peace of mind. Additionally, you’ll save money on your electric bill.

• Set your thermostat to closer match the outside temperatures. Turn it up in the summer or lower it in the winter. You don’t want to completely turn it off, because it protects your furniture, artwork, and plants.
• Turn off the water valves to your washer, dishwasher, toilet, and sinks, if possible.
• If your water heater has a vacation mode, use it.
• Unplug chargers, fans, small appliances and electronic devices.
• If you do leave items plugged in, protect them by using a surge protector.

General Home Preparation

Home safety isn’t the only reason you should prepare your home for a vacation. Avoid coming home to a mess by planning ahead. When you get home, you just want to rest and get ready to get back to work. Make sure to prepare your home for an uncomplicated time when you get back:

• Clean out your fridge. Get rid of any food that won’t last while you’re away.
• Take out your trash. Go through your entire home to get trash from the bathroom and bedrooms.
• Lock and secure all windows and doors. Check the basement, sunroom and outside buildings.
• Run the dishwasher while you’re handling last-minute tasks. You don’t want to come home to a sink full of dirty dishes.
• Check your washer to make sure you don’t leave behind a wet load while you’re away.

If you are a pet parent and you are hiring a pet sitter to care for your pets while you are away, ask them what other services may be included or just a small extra fee. Most pet sitters will help you with bringing in the mail, taking out any trash, rotating lights to make it look like the house is occupied, cleaning up any pet messes, and just keeping an eye on things in general!

Take Your Pet With You or Hire A Pet Sitter!

 Enjoy a Carefree Vacation

Alert your bank and credit card company with your travel plans to expect activity on your cards. As you get ready to walk out the door, go back through every room and double-check that you haven’t left anything undone.

You may not be able to prevent every catastrophe from happening while you’re away from home. However, you can adequately prepare for your trip and ensure peace of mind by doing what you can well in advance of your travels!

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Raven is an engaging entrepreneur who encourages others to celebrate pets as part of the family, as well as keep them happy, healthy, and spoiled with her online specialty pet boutiques (www.TheGiftedPet.com & www.PamperedPetEssentials.com), and premium pet food business (www.PremiumPetFoodStore.com)

She is an enthusiastic advocate for animal rights, including wildlife & nature and likes to dabble in creative projects such as photography, digital art, custom greeting cards and more!

Raven is also dedicated to helping pet parents and other humans stay happy, healthy, and balanced with her 100% therapeutic-grade essential oils, oil-infused nutritional supplements, and oil-related lifestyle enhancements via Holistic Oils For Pets & Peeps! (www.HolisticOilsForPetsAndPeeps.com)

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