Leaving your property safe

Make an arrangement with a neighbor, friend or relative to check your home periodically.
If a friend or neighbor cannot collect your mail, make arrangements for it to be held at the Post Office.
Arrange for lawn care or snow removal. Ignoring these areas will make your house stand out in the neighborhood and announce to everyone that you are gone.
Arrange for someone to start your car during very cold or very hot weather.
Purchase automatic light timers for lights and a radio. Plug a cheap radio into a timer so you can have some noise in the house during part of the day.
Check your insurance for expiration dates and coverage for your automobile, home and the valuables that you’ll take with you, as well as those you’ll leave at home.
Put your valuables and jewelry in a safety deposit box. If you don’t have, or can’t get access to a safety deposit box, you still want to hinder a hurried burglar by hiding valuable items in your house.
Notify the local police and security system company to immediately consider any alarms as real. Leave with them the names of anyone responsible to watch over your house.
Move houseplants away from direct sunlight, water thoroughly and wrap pots with plastic. Most plants can then live without further watering for two weeks.
Empty the refrigerator of items that might spoil.
Cancel or hold your newspaper delivery.
You might want to turn your refrigerator to its lowest setting.
Turn water heater down to the lowest setting.
Turn your air conditioner up in summer. You want to reduce your bills, but you may have to keep the house from getting too hot to protect your pets and electronics.
Turn your heat down or off in spring or fall. Be sure to leave the house warm enough in the winter. You may want to reduce your bills, but you may need to keep the house from getting too cold to protect your pets and water pipes.
Leave shades or drapes as you normally do.
Lock all doors and windows including basement & garage.
Unplug electronic items, such as, your computer to protect them if you have a storm while you’re gone. Remember to unhook your phone line from the modem. Unfortunately, you may have to leave it all hooked up if your computer is your only answering machine. Make sure your surge protectors are properly installed.
Pack the car inside the garage, with the door down, so people driving by won’t find out you’re leaving.
Disconnect the garage door. Unplug it if you can, don’t pull the fuse for the garage door until you verify the fuse isn’t hooked up to something that needs to stay on, such as, your refrigerator or maybe a freezer in the garage.

What outgoing message should I leave on my answering machine?
The same one you usually do. You don’t want to announce to the world that you won’t return their call immediately because the house will be empty and unguarded for a while. Most answering machines have the ability to update you on your messages if you call in and use a special code to retrieve those messages. The answering machine’s manual should have instructions on how to retrieve your messages with an incoming call. If your answering machine doesn’t have this feature, and you are worried about a delay in receiving important messages, consider buying a new answering machine with this feature.

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