Preparing Your Home for the Summer Holiday
Getting ready for a well-deserved summer vacation?
Aside from packing and getting ready to enjoy some relaxing time, here are a few things you should do around your house before you leave. It will allow for a smooth return after your time away, and help you relax knowing everything is in order back home.
Because even after the most wonderful of vacations, it’s always nice to come home, provided you’ve taken steps to prepare your house for your return.
Source: Homefulness
1. Clean your home
As weird as it might sounds to clean just before you leave, always remember that no one wants to come home to a messy or smelly house. You might not need to deep clean everything before you leave, but walking through the door to a dirty house after a long day of travel will rip you out of relaxation mode.
That said, cleaning your home before vacation isn't just for your own sanity. It's also to help prevent things from going awry, such as fruit flies taking over in your absence. Scrub the sinks and toilets, vacuum and toss or eat any fruits sitting out.
2. Clean out the refrigerator
While you're at it, take a peek inside your refrigerator. No one wants to come home to a fridge full of rotten, stinky foods so freeze, eat or donate anything that will spoil while you're gone.
3. Take out the trash
To be fair, taking out the trash is part of cleaning. However, if you clean out your refrigerator, it's worth reiterating that you should definitely make sure to take out the garbage before you leave. If you don't, you run the risk of coming home to all sorts of rancid smells and pests galore.
4. Don't forget the laundry
While frantically running around packing and cleaning the house, it's easy to forget the obvious things. That last load of laundry you forgot to put in the dryer, for instance.
Before you leave, check the washer. Coming home to a full load of laundry that has had a week to sit and sour is less than ideal, to say the least.
5. Take precautions for fire
Before you leave, make sure to unplug electronics around the house that don't need power while you're gone. Not only will it save you on your energy bill, it will lower the risk of an electrical fire. TVs, computers, and other devices still draw a small amount of electricity when not in use so unplug everything that doesn’t need to stay connected while you’re gone. Leave the refrigerator and freezer plugged in, but you can turn the settings up slightly since you won’t be there opening it to let the chill out.
6. Program your thermostat
Another way to save on energy while you're on vacation is setting the thermostat to an away program. Many newer thermostats — especially smart ones — offer a feature like this that will adjust the temperature setting when you're not home. In the summer, it will raise the temperature for cooling and, in the winter, it will lower the temperature for heating.
Just be ready to wait for your home to return to a comfortable temperature when you return. That said, if you have a smart thermostat, you can disable the away mode hours before you arrive home and can walk into a perfectly cooled (or heated) house.
7. Put lights on timers
One simple step you can take to deter break-ins is to put lights around your house on timers. You can do this the old school way with outlet timers. But if you want to upgrade the effect, use smart bulbs. Not only will you be able to control the lights remotely, you can put them on a different schedule each day while you're gone to even better simulate someone being home.
8. Check all the windows and doors
Right before you leave, it's wise to check all the possible entry points around your home. Make sure you haven't left any seldom-used doors or windows unlocked or cracked open.
9. Notify a trusted neighbour
Even the best security precautions can’t take the place of good human eyes and ears. Ask a friend to check for package deliveries, those annoying free circulars that get thrown in driveways, and suspicious activity in your absence.
10. Take it a step further and plan to rest well
Fresh linens every day are an enjoyable part of any hotel stay, and something many of us miss when we get back home. Extend the enjoyment by putting fresh sheets on beds and hanging fresh towels in the bathrooms before you leave, so your house feels as plush as a hotel when you get home!
And now, time to enjoy your vacation!
This will be the last post of this Homefulness blog before the summer break.
We hope you’ll have an amazing summer and don’t forget you can always reach out if you have any question / request / or need to schedule an initial consultation or an organising session. Also let us know if there’s any specific topic you’d like us to discuss on the blog.
See you again in September !
