From time to time, you may need someone to watch over your house. Perhaps you’re heading away for a month or two, you need someone to look after your pets while you’re on vacation, or your friend needs a couch to crash on and luckily, you’re vacating for a short while.
Leaving your house in the care of a friend can be a win-win for all parties. Of course, with highly trusted friends you don’t need to set too many ground rules, because it’s not as if they’ll be throwing a party while you’re gone. That said, an older child may have this temptation, and so setting rules for them is key, should you opt for their help instead.
Put simply, you want the organizational and logistical caretaking duties to be as simple as possible for them. That might include parking their car in your drive to make the home look more lived in, paying them to mow your lawn or other tasks like this, asking them to water your plants and what kind of medication they need to place in your cat’s food each morning, and on and on.
In this post, we’ll discuss how to prepare their caretaking effort more readily:
Leave A Range Of Trusted Contacts
If there’s an emergency, it’s fair to say that you might not be able to return as quickly as you’d like. In any case, you might be able to help liaise with trusted trades that provide the services you need, as well as letting your friends know how they can contact them. That might involve the contact information of a trusted local plumber if there’s an issue with a sink you’ve been having problems with. You can talk through the issues over the phone of course, but a handy set of resources like this does have a positive impact.
Offer Those Essential Comforts
It’s nice to offer a few comforts for your friend looking after your house. That might involve stocking the food with easy-to-make meal kits, giving them the code to your television or games console, and rolling out the living room fold-out bed or letting them sleep in yours with freshly cleaned sheets. This can be part of how you prepare the house, such as by showing them which windows to keep ventilation locked in the day and which to close at night.
Tell Your Neighbors
Of course, your neighbors are used to seeing you there, and so the different car, schedule and presence of a friend might be strange to them. Letting them know that you’ve approved this friend in advance will help you prevent a panicked call at 3am when a neighbor thinks your home has been broken into. You can also prepare your friend by telling them which neighbors are friendly and which may be a little less so.
With this advice, you’ll be sure to leave your house in the care of a friend in the right way, and thank them properly as soon as you return.