Going Away Off-Season: A Claremont Lock-Up Routine

Most people lock the front door, wheel the suitcase out and hope. That works right up until it does not, and the failures that happen while a house is empty are almost always the expensive kind, because nobody is there to catch them in the first hour.

The routine below is for an owner going away, whether for a long weekend or a couple of months. It is a different problem from an empty property on the market, which has its own set of exposures covered in the piece on showing a Claremont home in December. Here nobody needs access, which simplifies some things and complicates others.

Water is the first and biggest decision

A supply line that fails in an occupied house is a bad afternoon. The same failure in a house nobody enters for three weeks is a rebuild.

For anything longer than a few days, seriously consider shutting the main water supply off. Before you do, know what else that affects: irrigation systems are often on a separate line but not always, and any fire suppression system must not be interfered with. Confirm which valves control what BEFORE you need to, and label them.

Where shutting the main off is impractical, close the individual valves at the washing machine, the dishwasher and the ice maker, which is where a disproportionate share of failures start. Check the flexible supply hoses at the same time; the braided ones have a service life and people replace them roughly never.

Leak sensors at the water heater, under sinks and at the laundry connection are inexpensive and can alert a neighbour or a phone before a slow leak becomes a floor.

Power, climate and the things left running

Do not shut the power down. Refrigeration, alarms, lighting timers, any monitoring and, in warm weather, some baseline air circulation all depend on it.

Set the thermostat to a holding range rather than switching it off. In the cool months a modest floor temperature protects plumbing and finishes. In the heat, a ceiling temperature protects candles, electronics, musical instruments and anything else that objects to a closed house baking for a fortnight, and it keeps the interior from developing the stale smell a sealed house acquires quickly.

Unplug what does not need to be live. Anything with a heating element, anything charging, and any device you would not leave running unattended overnight.

Empty the refrigerator of anything that will not survive the trip, take the refuse out, and run the garbage disposal clean. A single forgotten bag is the difference between arriving home and arriving home to a problem.

Irrigation and the garden

This is where seasonal timing changes the answer entirely.

Leaving in the heat means the landscape needs a plan, because unwatered plantings in a long hot absence do not recover. Set the controller deliberately rather than leaving whatever it was doing, prioritise established trees and mature shrubs over lawn, and check that no head is spraying a wall, a window or the foundation, which is exactly the sort of fault that runs unnoticed for weeks and produces both a water bill and a moisture problem.

Leaving in the cool months means the opposite risk: a controller happily irrigating through a wet stretch. If the system has a rain sensor, confirm it works. If not, set the schedule down.

Whatever the season, confirm current watering rules with your water provider and the city before setting anything, since restrictions change and a controller does not know that.

If there is a pool, it needs its own arrangement rather than being left to circulate hopefully; that is covered separately in the guide to the Claremont homeowner's year.

Making the house look occupied

An empty house announces itself in a small number of ways, and all of them are fixable.

Hold the mail and suspend deliveries rather than letting a porch fill up. Arrange for anything unexpected to be collected. Stop or redirect the newspaper if you still take one.

Put interior lights on varied timers in more than one room, and make sure exterior lighting works at every entry. Leave a car in the driveway if you can, or arrange for a neighbour to use the space.

Keep the landscape maintained. Uncut grass and uncleared leaves are the classic tell, and they are noticed by exactly the people you would rather not have noticing.

Do not announce the absence publicly. That includes social media, which is a well-known and still routinely ignored point.

Pests, which arrive when nobody is home

An unoccupied house is quiet, undisturbed and often warmer or cooler than outside, which is an invitation. Before leaving, seal food into containers rather than trusting packaging, empty and clean anything organic, and close the openings that matter: door sweeps, screens, the gap at the garage door.

Drains that dry out can allow odours and, over a long absence, become a route in. Where the water is shut off, that is a trade to be aware of rather than a reason not to shut it off. The seasonal side of this is set out in more detail in the piece on keeping a Claremont property presentable through a dry summer, which covers the same water and vegetation management from the other direction.

People, keys and insurance

Somebody local should have a key, a phone number, and a reason to walk through periodically. Give them the alarm information, tell them where the water shutoff is, and ask them to walk the perimeter as well as the interior.

Tell the immediate neighbours you are away and when you expect to return. Neighbours are the most effective monitoring system available and they cost nothing.

For a long absence, call your insurer. Many homeowner policies contain provisions relating to unoccupied or vacant property beyond a defined period, and the definitions and durations differ between policies. Ask directly, get the answer in writing, and find out whether anything additional is needed. This is a five-minute call that occasionally turns out to be the most valuable thing on the list.

Fire season and other timing

If the absence falls in a period of elevated fire risk or expected wind, the preparation list is different and it is not optional. Defensible space, clear gutters, nothing combustible stored against the structure, and a plan for who acts if an evacuation order is issued while you are not there.

Route the specifics to the fire authority and the city rather than to a checklist on the internet, including current defensible space requirements and how alerts are issued for your address. Make sure whoever holds your key is signed up for those alerts too, because an alert nobody local receives is not doing anything.

The return

Come back with a routine as well. Restore the water slowly and check under every sink, at the water heater and at the laundry connection. Run taps to clear anything that has been standing. Check the refrigerator, the thermostat, the irrigation controller and the mail. Walk the perimeter before you unpack.

Ten minutes at the door catches the small problems while they are still small, which is the entire theory of this article.

More on managing a Claremont property across the calendar sits on the seasonal guides hub. Anthony Grynchal has been licensed in California since November 2009. The cheapest travel insurance most homeowners never buy is a closed water valve and a neighbour with a key.