Moving into corporate apartment; leaving house vacant for 10 weeks

April 21, 2017 11:39 PM

We’re moving! For 10 weeks! And we’re leaving our house vacant! What should we do to prepare it? And what do we bring to our “furnished” apartment?

Work is paying for us to move for 10 weeks -- mid-May through the end of July, almost the hottest part of the year here in Texas. The two of us are going from a well-lived-in 2200 sq ft house to a 950 sq ft furnished “luxury” apartment with a one-year-old, a medium-sized dog, and two cats. The apartment has a tiny yard for the dog. We’ll be five hours away by car.

We're bringing a computer and printer, our favorite kitchen appliances (rice cooker, etc.), baby gear, and a little hobby stuff to keep us busy, plus clothes and toiletries. I hope to remember to bring the houseplants in order to keep them alive. What are we not thinking of that might not be furnished in a “furnished” corporate apartment?

And what should we do with our house while we're gone? Renting it out, Airbnb, etc. is not an option. We just want to leave it vacant. It's in a quiet, generally safe neighborhood in the suburbs, in a cul-de-sac.
- We have friends who can drop by to check on it occasionally. We're not really conversant with the neighbors, but we wave to each other when we're in the yard, etc. Should we talk to them before we leave? It seems awkward.
- We have a monitored security system and plan to leave it on.
- We plan to get a lawn service that can bill us.
- We’ll get our mail forwarded.

Questions:
- What do we do with the air conditioning? My spouse wants to just turn it off, but again, this is Texas -- it will literally be 100 degrees inside. (The AC broke last summer and that's exactly what happened.)
- Do we turn off the water heater? Unplug appliances? What are the best practices for fire safety?
- Do we keep our pest service? They only do the outside anyway -- we don't need to be around.
- What else aren't we thinking of?

Thanks much. This is scary! I haven't lived in an apartment since college, never with a family and pets, and I'm nervous about leaving the house vacant for so long.

posted by anonymous to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

Furnished kitchens usually have low quality and a minimum number of kitchen things, so in addition to appliances I would bring:
- Chefs knife & paring knife
- A cutting board
- 1 or 2 spatulas
- 2c liquid measuring cup
- Any baking pan/sheet/etc that I needed for a special occasion or want 2 of
- Maybe any pots or pans that I use frequently and are kind of special - like an enameled cast iron Dutch oven or a very nonstick skillet
- Spices or condiments I use frequently

I would also toss in a blanket or throw to use while on the couch.
posted by asphericalcow at 5:51 AM on April 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

You might mention to your neighbors that you will be gone for the 10 weeks and ask if they wouldn't mind keeping an eye out for any odd activity/why they won't be seeing you. I would be happy to know/do that for a neighbor that I only had a waving relationship with.

Call your police non-emergency number and let them know.

Keep the AC on, set at a relatively high temp. We leave a house in Northern Wisconsin for the winter with heat set at 50 degrees, so I can't advise a good temp for AC, but I don't think you want your house/contents to bake.

Turn off the water at the main valve; we've had a pipe on the water heater burst while we were at work and the damage was enough that we shut off the water if we'll be gone for just a week.

Unplug what you can - better safe than sorry. Maybe leave the refrigerator on.

Put some lamps on timers around the house- set for the times you usually have lights on. Leave a radio on - all to make the house seem lived in.
posted by sarajane at 6:22 AM on April 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

Talk to your insurance agent. Leaving a house vacant can have an effect on your coverage. I'm not saying it will, but call your agent and inform them the house will be vacant.
posted by mygoditsbob at 6:23 AM on April 22, 2017

You should probably call your home insurance company and find out whether you would need any kind of rider if you leave your home unoccupied for 10 weeks. If you have an HOA you might want to investigate whether they have any restrictions on leaving the house unoccupied as well.

I would definitely leave the AC on, set at 85 or something. Keep all the shades down, etc.
posted by mskyle at 6:23 AM on April 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Seconding to check on your insurance requirements- there may be a clause that your house needs to be checked every 24 hours.
posted by bighappyhairydog at 6:36 AM on April 22, 2017

Don't turn off the air conditioner! Not if you like your stuff. My mom lives in Palm Springs in not-summer and she sets her thermostat to 80° while she's gone.

We always tell our neighbors when we're gone for a long period of time, even though we're not buddies. If we see them in person we give a heads up that way, otherwise we just send an email.

I get not wanting to airbnb or rent your space, but we've had luck offering our place to friends or friends-of-friends who need/want a nicer place to crash for a few weeks. If you have apartment-dwelling pals, they might welcome a chance to spread out in a nice house. That way someone's looking after stuff (and your plants) while you're gone.

Also I don't know if it helps but I always set light timers.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 6:54 AM on April 22, 2017

Bring the content of your pantry - spices, sauces, condiments you use more than once a year. It is really costly to replace all this and whilst you may be happy to make do without for a week or two three months is a different proposition.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:28 AM on April 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, at least inventory the pantry and make a list of what's in it. You might not bring everything with you, but the first couple of weeks of cooking in the kitchen can annoyingly involve a trip to the store every single time if you don't have a list of the stuff you assume you have and get it all at once.

I would at least pay someone (work friend, neighbor) a small amount to hold the keys and do minimal checking up. Maybe once a week, pick up any flyers that have been thrown on your doorstep or mailbox, look around the exterior for anything suspicious, and maybe a small checklist inside. Pour a bucket of water down all the toilets and drains, make sure a/c is still on (agree with a high setting, but not off). Basically keep the place from looking abandoned and be able to call if there's a problem like a break-in or vandalism on the property.

The neighborhood police around here have told us people "casing" the house for a break-in like to do things like put a flyer on the doorknob and see how long it stays that way, or damage something a homeowner would notice and fix promptly. (A weird one for a while last year was cutting people's garden hoses - the police said that's what that was about, though I can't imagine if I was a housebreaker I'd rely on THAT indicator too much.)
posted by ctmf at 12:02 PM on April 22, 2017

Is there someone who can stay overnight on the weekends or for a few nights a week?
Even if it is only every two or three weeks, it will be good for your house to be occupied at night every once in a while.
I actually wouldn't tell my neighbors--the fewer people who know the house is unoccupied the better.
posted by calgirl at 1:15 PM on April 22, 2017

Don't leave food in cabinets/pantry unless it's sealed in airtight, preferably glass containers. You don't want critters to munch through your boxes of pasta or bags of flour.
posted by kapers at 4:09 PM on April 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

-If you're active on social media, be wary of publishing red flag announcements that says House Vacant For 10 weeks!

-Seconding having a paid service or super awesome friend to come by once a week and do quick checks. Agree with ctmf's neighbourhood police: nothing says no one home more than 8 weeks of take out menus stuck to the front door. That way, on the odd chance something happens (like a leak or the air conditioner breaks) you'll have a person who can deal with it and save yourself the hassle of needing to drive back.

-Stuff a towel in anything with a rubber gasket seal (dishwasher/front loading washer) so air gets in. It wont get dank or gross mold.

-Leave the air con on. Same as suggestions above, set to 80.
posted by peppertree at 6:26 PM on April 22, 2017

Not sure about the a/c, but definitely leave dehumidifier running. I'd leave the fridge on. Fill a plastic cup with water, freeze it, and put a coin on top. Leave it in the freezer. If the coin is on the bottom when you return, there was a serious power outage. Set the water heat to barely lukewarm.

I live in Maine and left my house empty for 6 - 9 months. twice. I had the pipes drained and water shut off because Winter, left the fridge and a lamp-on-timer running. The only problem is that a copper heating pipe came unsoldered because on repeated temp differences. Well, also, if you return to Maine in Spring after an unusually bad winter, you can't get in to your driveway until the snow melts. Sadly, no shoemaker's elves came and cleaned, but with no activity, the biggest issue was cobwebs.
posted by theora55 at 9:28 AM on April 23, 2017

If I were you, I'd consider asking/paying someone from the neighborhood to water your plants - this will also allow them to keep an eye on the house and alert you in case of security breaches or a/c malfunction or any other emergency. This would be a good job for a responsible local kid/teenager/student - if you don't know one, consider looking for local ads for babysitters (as a high schooler, I got housesitting gigs through my babysitting ads and it wasn't an issue). If you like, you could even encourage them to "hang out" there if they need a quiet space or whatever - provides a presence in the home, and it's a nice benefit to the right person.
posted by R a c h e l at 6:46 AM on April 24, 2017 [1 favorite]