When you go away?

debidoodle

We have brilliant elderly neighbours who ask us what date our holidays are and they then book theirs around ours. They look after our house and we also look after theirs, put the bins out on the correct day, close the curtains in the evening and return in the morning and open them and also the windows. We also water his garden as he is a keen vegetable gardener, hubby also helps him when he needs help lifting heavy items etc, we are very fortunate as they are a lovely couple.

mobby-2554

We have a fish tank so I use a timer to go on now & again.
I also set a timer for a lamp in a bedroom to go on at night for a couple of hours.
My son nips in everyday to sort out mail & feed the fish.

Pollycat

We leave our curtains open and set autotimers in 3 different rooms to put the lights on when it starts to get dark.

Our neighbour's lovely youngest son comes in every couple of days to feed our fish so he moves any post.

On the subject of going on holiday, does anyone else have to clean the house from top to bottom, put clean bedding on, do as much laundry and ironing as possible......?

pollypenny

We do swops with our neighbours and look after each other's houses, putting out bins, watering pots etc.

We also use timers set at different times, with one place so that its light shows from both front and side door.

pattycake

Pollycat wrote: »

We leave our curtains open and set autotimers in 3 different rooms to put the lights on when it starts to get dark.

Our neighbour's lovely youngest son comes in every couple of days to feed our fish so he moves any post.

On the subject of going on holiday, does anyone else have to clean the house from top to bottom, put clean bedding on, do as much laundry and ironing as possible......?

Yes, I cannot bear the thought of coming home to a less than pristine home and I bring enough washing back with me without having a pile of dirty stuff waiting at home!

I close my venetian blinds in my bedrooms and leave my downstairs curtains without my normal tie-backs. I leave a lamp on a timer in the living room and also one in my study which is on the front upstairs. They come on and off at slightly different times.

My neighbour across the road has a key and the burglar alarm code so she keeps an eye on the house for me. My daughter lives close by so she will also pop in to make sure everything is alright.

I am the most dreadful worrier and very house proud but something happens to me when I go away. I just completely forget about the home, just put it out of my mind. I do tell me family though that when I ring from holiday, if the house has been broken into do not tell me. It would only spoil my vacation and there's nothing I can do about it any way.

DKLS

Do nothing other than leave a spare car key with the neighbour in case the alarm goes off, thats why I pay insurance.

Francophile

Pollycat wrote: »

On the subject of going on holiday, does anyone else have to clean the house from top to bottom, put clean bedding on, do as much laundry and ironing as possible......?

I'm not as bad now as i used to be but apart from cleaning the house like a demon, changing the beds, making sure all washing and ironing was up to date, I used ( before we had wooden floors installed ) to get DH to shampoo the carpets before we left. We would have luggage children etc loaded into the car and he would get stuck in with the carpet shampooer. It's was great coming home to lovely sparkling clean house.
Now we change our bed and lock the bedroom door as quite often our teenage (and older) children stay behind. We've come home to find our bed slept in ( in fact all th beds slept in) hence the reason I only change our bed and don't bother to clean the house as it would be a waste of time.

Almo

We have those timers you can set for different times on different days and so we do that. I know it's total paranoia but I just think if anyone was watching the house and saw that the lights came on at EXACTLY the same time every night, they'd realise what was going on. So it's different lights on different days and at slightly different times (+/- 20 mins).

We also leave a radio on a timer.

Mojisola

DKLS wrote: »

Do nothing other than leave a spare car key with the neighbour in case the alarm goes off, thats why I pay insurance.

I hope this isn't straying off topic - but are the only things that you would miss stuff that money could replace? I would be far more upset at things that have sentimental value that might be damaged or stolen and they couldn't be replaced. Not all break-ins are done by neat and tidy thieves. I don't think I would feel the same about a house that had been vandalised, sprayed with graffiti and had someone else's execreta spread around.

We have good neighbours who keep an eye on the house, garden and feed the chickens and we leave keys with a relative who pops round to sort out post and so on.

Becles

Pollycat wrote: »

On the subject of going on holiday, does anyone else have to clean the house from top to bottom, put clean bedding on, do as much laundry and ironing as possible......?

My Mam does that before holidays and Christmas.

She lets the ironing build right up and I could never understand her frantically ironing winter clothes in the summer and shorts in the winter and getting stressed over getting it all done before Christmas/holidays