Prepare Your Home Prior to Leaving on Vacation. Here’s a Checklist on What You Need to Do
Before leaving on vacation, it’s important to prepare your home both for your departure and arrival. When you leave the house empty, burglars could take advantage of the situation and break-in. There are things that you can do to avoid this. Your home must also be prepared for your arrival. After long hours of travel, it would be relaxing to come home to a clean, relaxing and inviting place. This is possible by cleaning up and organizing your house before you leave.
Check on the Doors and Windows
Burglars can get inside the house through these. Perform an inspection on the doors and windows to ensure that there are no damages. Have any issue fixed right away as even a small damage could be enough for the thieves to gain access to your property. Double check them as well on the actual date that you’re about to leave to make sure that they are properly locked.
Set Light to Automatically Turn On and Off
If your home is dark, this could give intruders a hint that nobody’s home, making your place a possible target of burglary. You may invest on a timer that would automatically turn on and off the lights on the set time. Set the lights to turn on when it’s about to get dark and set it to automatically turn off lights when the morning comes.
Request Mail, Newspaper and Other Subscriptions to Be Temporarily Stopped
An overflowing mailbox could also tell criminals that there’s no one in the house making it an easy target for robbery. Advice the post office and your subscription providers to temporarily hold sending mails and subscriptions until your return.
Unplug Appliances
Leaving your appliances plugged in could cause fire. This would also add up to your electric bill. Even when you’re not using the appliances, they still consume electricity when they are plugged in. Turn off heater or air conditioning too to save on electricity. No one would be home anyway so it wouldn’t be needed.
Remove Clutter in the House
A cluttered house is a sore to the eyes and it could also make you feel stressed out. After a nice vacation, you want to bring home that nice feeling and it could disappear in an instant if what you see when you get home is clutter. Moreover, the travel home can be tiring so it would be really nice to come home to a clean and relaxing environment.
Clean the Dishes and Throw Garbage Out
To keep your home smelling fresh, throw out the garbage and clean all the dirty dishes prior to your travel. If not, the rotten food items and left overs could smell and it would be all over the house. This isn’t something that you want to deal with after arriving from a trip.
Change the Beddings
Nothing beats the comfort of your own bed. It would feel even better to lie there and take a rest if your beddings are clean. This can be easily done by changing your pillow sheets, bed sheet and blanket or comforter before leaving for your holiday. You’ll thank yourself that you did it after going home from hours of travel.
Do the Laundry
After a long vacation, you may find yourself adjusting when you go back to your regular routine. You may need a few days before you get used to your old schedule and tasks. This means that you may not be able to do the laundry right away. So to prevent it from piling up, why not wash the clothes before heading to your holiday destination?
These are simple but effective tips in preparing your home prior to leaving for a vacation, so make sure to do them.
Photo Attribution:
Featured and 1st image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
2nd image courtesy of Master isolated images at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
3rd image courtesy of foto76 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
