Don’t Let the House Fall Down While We’re Gone…

The countdown has begun. It won’t be long before Thom and I take off for our next Camino. His job is to keep all the travel bits on track. My job is to make sure the house doesn’t fall down while we’re gone. There will be house sitters, auto-bill pays (so the lights don’t go out), and neighborhood watchers.

We’re very lucky. Our neighbors are trained to spot anything out of the ordinary. Living where we do, in the heart of what was once considered an urban gang battle zone, our neighborhood watch has clear channels of communication. We are texting fools. We live on our porches and in our yards in the Spring and Summer. We talk to each other. With all that, I hope that there will be no shenanigans. One neighbor who did not take these precautions and communicate they would be gone (or rarely communicates at all) fell victim to a serial robber last summer. While they did have a person that picked up mail, that person failed their duty and they were cleaned out.

That incident drove home a lesson to me. I am rarely on a schedule but with our resident tenant being a camping enthusiast, I decided to have a live in house sitter as well. I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Judging from my caution, you’d think I had this handled, right? Sort of. I’m a person who makes lists. I’m not terribly detail oriented, therefore I make lists and then sub lists and then put it into a project plan. Ok, I could be considered slightly OCD on the subject of gantt charts. I once made a project plan for Christmas Lasagna. But I still insist that I am not terribly detail oriented. But I am a Bullet Journal enthusiast. This has helped me stay organized and on track (and away from the timesuck vortex that is Facebook).

My current list is something like:

• Credit/Debit Columns
  • Gas Bill – Set reminder to pay Midmonth
  • Electric/Water/Sewer – Pay before we leave, set reminder to pay Beginning of last month
  • Give deposit slips to “tenant” to deposit his rent
  • Envelope with Petty Cash for house sitters
  • Chip debit cards
• Animals
  • Set up whiteboard for cat regular feeding, flea treatment, and kitchen rules
  • Set up cat food and cat litter reminder to order from Amazon
  • Set up whiteboard for chicken instructions (feeding, where to get feed)
• House Sitter
  • Clean out master bedroom for house sitters to use
  • Check insurance to see if house sitters can use Romana
  • Keys
• Phones
  • Research and set up international phone service

As to the phones, this turned out to be much easier than the last time we went abroad. We have a carrier that has automatically included our international data and texts. That’s one off my list of To-Dos!

List of phone REMINDERS:

• Cat food – every three weeks
• Cat Litter- every two weeks
• Power/Water/Sewer beginning of month
• Email self and Thom with the reminders in case I lose my phone and can’t get a replacement right away

And with that, I hope my plan to keep the house from falling down succeeds.