Maintaining an intermittently-occupied house
July 5, 2019 7:38 PM Subscribe
I find myself in a situation where I will be living away from my main house for most of a year, but with intermittent visits back. I’m trying to figure out the best way to watch and maintain it.
Most likely I will be returning to the house at least once a month, but potentially twice or three times. So I don’t really want to do the full “winterize” process that’s going to be a hassle to undo when I return (especially if I arrive after a late flight or something). But I also am pretty paranoid about issues while we are gone.
I will set up security cameras, and our neighbors have already agreed to keep an eye on the place. I’m also thinking of trying to hire someone to check on the house at least once or twice a week. But I have a bunch of questions.
What kind of person should I try to find to check on the house? I don’t think “house sitter” is the right term because that seems to be people who want to stay in the house during a trip or something. I will be gone for a year, and need just quick checks and walk-throughs a few times a week.
How should I handle mail forwarding? I believe regular forwarding works for up to a year, so it’s probably fine, but I worry about what I do if the stay gets extended at all. And in my experience, forwarding is very unreliable. Do I need to have the house checker person packing up mail and sending it to me? Should I be trying to change the address on things, even though it’s a temporary move? Honestly the percentage of our mail that I actually need to get is very low, but I’m nervous about missing something important.
What is the “happy medium” list of things to do to make the house ready to be unoccupied for weeks at a time, but also still ready for me to sleep there on short notice?
If you have ever done anything remotely like this, I would love your advice.
Most likely I will be returning to the house at least once a month, but potentially twice or three times. So I don’t really want to do the full “winterize” process that’s going to be a hassle to undo when I return (especially if I arrive after a late flight or something). But I also am pretty paranoid about issues while we are gone.
I will set up security cameras, and our neighbors have already agreed to keep an eye on the place. I’m also thinking of trying to hire someone to check on the house at least once or twice a week. But I have a bunch of questions.
What kind of person should I try to find to check on the house? I don’t think “house sitter” is the right term because that seems to be people who want to stay in the house during a trip or something. I will be gone for a year, and need just quick checks and walk-throughs a few times a week.
How should I handle mail forwarding? I believe regular forwarding works for up to a year, so it’s probably fine, but I worry about what I do if the stay gets extended at all. And in my experience, forwarding is very unreliable. Do I need to have the house checker person packing up mail and sending it to me? Should I be trying to change the address on things, even though it’s a temporary move? Honestly the percentage of our mail that I actually need to get is very low, but I’m nervous about missing something important.
What is the “happy medium” list of things to do to make the house ready to be unoccupied for weeks at a time, but also still ready for me to sleep there on short notice?
If you have ever done anything remotely like this, I would love your advice.
I have had to do something like this. What I did was rent the place out to someone at a reduced rate because of the associated responsibilities, like getting my mail and contacting me in case of issues, and my having to stay there on a regular basis. It worked well, and I would do it again. You mention arriving after "a flight" which suggests to me that you are going to be pretty far away. I was similarly, and it gave me huge peace of mind knowing a random break-in or busted furnace+burst water pipe wouldn't go unnoticed for days and that there'd be someone there to let in workers in the event of a needed emergency repair.
posted by unannihilated at 8:04 PM on July 5, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by unannihilated at 8:04 PM on July 5, 2019 [6 favorites]
Looking at the answer before mine -
I did not have a divided house, though it was large enough that there was a spare bedroom that could be reserved just for me. But when I was there I shared the kitchen, bathroom, living areas, etc. It worked fine. I think at the right price point people will be fine with just about anything. And yes, this worked because the person was reliable and trustworthy. So that's key. I happened to know them prior to this.
posted by unannihilated at 8:10 PM on July 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
I did not have a divided house, though it was large enough that there was a spare bedroom that could be reserved just for me. But when I was there I shared the kitchen, bathroom, living areas, etc. It worked fine. I think at the right price point people will be fine with just about anything. And yes, this worked because the person was reliable and trustworthy. So that's key. I happened to know them prior to this.
posted by unannihilated at 8:10 PM on July 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
Other details - we had the tenants put the utilities in their own names and reimbursed them for days when we were there, and when I said "rental agent" I meant "property manager", so she was available to, for example, get an emergency plumber if needed.
posted by LadyOscar at 8:16 PM on July 5, 2019
posted by LadyOscar at 8:16 PM on July 5, 2019
I did a few month-plus trips. Regular free mail forwarding lasts 30 days in the US, and it is a hassle to extend or collect mail earlier. For your situation, I'd sign up for paperless bills and do an address change for the duration.
Mail aside, plumbing and climate control worried me most.
Tech-wise, I had wifi cameras inside, so I could see that doors were shut, etc. Also, wifi thermostat.
I personally would turn off the water to the washing machine - broken hoses in an unoccupied house is real bad news. I would not turn the water off generally, since I'd want someone to flush toilets and run the taps and also the dishwasher.
I'm guessing no pets or houseplants?
On preview: for a full year I'd also consider renting. I wasn't willing to renter-proof for my relatively short stretches.
posted by mersen at 8:18 PM on July 5, 2019
Mail aside, plumbing and climate control worried me most.
Tech-wise, I had wifi cameras inside, so I could see that doors were shut, etc. Also, wifi thermostat.
I personally would turn off the water to the washing machine - broken hoses in an unoccupied house is real bad news. I would not turn the water off generally, since I'd want someone to flush toilets and run the taps and also the dishwasher.
I'm guessing no pets or houseplants?
On preview: for a full year I'd also consider renting. I wasn't willing to renter-proof for my relatively short stretches.
posted by mersen at 8:18 PM on July 5, 2019
Your existing insurance may not cover it.
Apparently there's a thing called unoccupied home insurance, which you can get as a stand-alone policy or an endorsement on your current policy.
Hopefully someone else here knows about the subject and can chime in.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:25 PM on July 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
Apparently there's a thing called unoccupied home insurance, which you can get as a stand-alone policy or an endorsement on your current policy.
Hopefully someone else here knows about the subject and can chime in.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:25 PM on July 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
What kind of person should I try to find to check on the house?
A property management company is what I'd look for here.
posted by bethnull at 8:29 PM on July 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
A property management company is what I'd look for here.
posted by bethnull at 8:29 PM on July 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
My husband and I are often away for months at a time, we often ask around if someone, often a younger friend, might enjoy getting away from roommates for a while. Free rent for them, house sitter for us.
posted by stray at 8:52 PM on July 5, 2019
posted by stray at 8:52 PM on July 5, 2019
Response by poster: Sorry, I should have specified, we definitely do not want to rent it out, and do not want anyone living there, for a variety of reasons (one of the largest is that, as I mentioned, I’ll need to be coming back to town with some frequency, on relatively short notice, and I do not want to share my house with someone else). The reason I need to return to town frequently is business, not to check on the house. But if I’m going to be in town for business, I want to stay in my own house.
Thanks for all the replies so far!
posted by primethyme at 9:04 PM on July 5, 2019
Thanks for all the replies so far!
posted by primethyme at 9:04 PM on July 5, 2019
We had a family friend do this for my mother along with yard work. He was at the house 2-3 times a week. Collected the mail, did a walk-thorough, occasionally reset which lights were on timer. Once a week, he would put any important mail in a first class priority envelop and send it on. Pay was based on the understanding that the travel time and interruption to his own plans were as much a part of what we were paying for as the actual time at the house.
I think you might be able to find a local pet sitter who would be happy to do this kind of regular visits to your house since pet sitters are also people who get keys to houses, visit them regularly and need to be trusted to responsible about taking care of valuable things for the owners.
posted by metahawk at 9:49 PM on July 5, 2019 [6 favorites]
I think you might be able to find a local pet sitter who would be happy to do this kind of regular visits to your house since pet sitters are also people who get keys to houses, visit them regularly and need to be trusted to responsible about taking care of valuable things for the owners.
posted by metahawk at 9:49 PM on July 5, 2019 [6 favorites]
How old is the house and things in it like the plumbing? If it's old enough things like the pipes might be going, consider preemptively replacing them. And get internet enabled water sensors that will send you notification if a leak happens. Getting it caught within hours rather than days or weeks means not having mold destroy everything.
You probably want someone that's used to handle the legal aspects of being legally responsible for dealing with someone else's property, so a property manager makes sense. If you need major repairs done while you're out of town, contractors may not be comfortable working with some random person that has a key.
Getting an internet enabled thermostat means you can keep the place at the minimum it needs to be at but adjust it to be comfortable by the point you arrive.
You probably want some kind of lights that make it look like you're home. Things like the hue bulbs make it easy to have a semi-random program so it's not just the same pattern again and again. You can also do things like have smart TVs turn on and show stuff periodically which helps boost the illusion that someone is there.
posted by Candleman at 10:17 PM on July 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
You probably want someone that's used to handle the legal aspects of being legally responsible for dealing with someone else's property, so a property manager makes sense. If you need major repairs done while you're out of town, contractors may not be comfortable working with some random person that has a key.
Getting an internet enabled thermostat means you can keep the place at the minimum it needs to be at but adjust it to be comfortable by the point you arrive.
You probably want some kind of lights that make it look like you're home. Things like the hue bulbs make it easy to have a semi-random program so it's not just the same pattern again and again. You can also do things like have smart TVs turn on and show stuff periodically which helps boost the illusion that someone is there.
posted by Candleman at 10:17 PM on July 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
We have a vacation house, that we visit once a month. We do turn off the water (and blow out the pipes in the winter) and we have a WiFi thermostat (that has already saved the house from freezing, once). We also have a neighbor keep an eye on things. Aside from the thermostat issue, we haven’t had any other problems in the 12 years we’ve owned it. If It were in a more populated area, I would also leave a few lamps on timers.
posted by sarajane at 6:30 AM on July 6, 2019
posted by sarajane at 6:30 AM on July 6, 2019
+1 for pet-sitter/dog walker. I’m a walker, and am currently doing this for 2 places. I do a walk-through twice a week, including flushing toilets/running sinks/picking up mail etc.
This also means you don’t have to worry about “unoccupied” insurance. I vary my visit times, so lights/watering/noise make it seem still lived in. Do any of your neighbours own dogs? Finding someone who lives nearby is key. (I also respond to house alarms)
posted by whowearsthepants at 8:09 AM on July 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
This also means you don’t have to worry about “unoccupied” insurance. I vary my visit times, so lights/watering/noise make it seem still lived in. Do any of your neighbours own dogs? Finding someone who lives nearby is key. (I also respond to house alarms)
posted by whowearsthepants at 8:09 AM on July 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
I use a website called Trusted Housesitters as a housesitter/petsitter. The postings on the site are for all lengths of time, from days to months to longer than a year. Some people who are gone intermittently ask for long-term housesitters who share space during the times they're at home, but most people just make postings for each trip. You could do this and have someone stay only when you are traveling (likely, different people, though you might find someone who just wants an alternative to staying with roommates or something who can keep returning). If you did this, you would have to cover their utilities, but you might find the peace of mind worth it. The site has a yearly membership fee (memail me if you want a discount code) but otherwise is free, since housesitters exchange their time and labor for a place to stay.
posted by pinochiette at 9:54 AM on July 6, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by pinochiette at 9:54 AM on July 6, 2019 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
When we bought a house remotely to move into later, we ended up renting out a floor under market value to grad students whose advisor we knew just to keep an eye on things, also using a rental agent. (We _did_ want to stay periodically, so the fact that we had an extra floor was essential there.) The students did well at collecting stray mail and making sure the house looked occupied, and everything went pretty well.
YMMV depending on the market demand where you are, whether you can find a decent agent/decent tenants (our agent wanted to vet people and rent to who they wanted at the price they wanted, but we preferred people we could keep tabs on at a lower price), whether you need the house at intervals, etc.
posted by LadyOscar at 8:04 PM on July 5, 2019 [1 favorite]