TRAVELING?

By Robin Shapiro

Here are some preventative tips on how to make your house lived in while you are away:

• Try to get someone to live in your house, even if it’s only for a few days. Perhaps a friend or a relative can help? Alternatively, if you can afford it, a paid house sitter might be a solution.
• If you can’t find a house sitter, then maybe you can find someone to check on the house, at least every other day. They’d take in the mail, pick up yard litter, and put out garbage bins for sanitation pickup (maybe even put some of their own garbage in your bins!)
• You might want to have your house sitter change the positions on the window shades, move your car’s position in the driveway, arrange to have the lawn cut, hire someone to shovel snow.
• Installed timers on interior and exterior house lights might be a good idea.
• Closing curtains to prevent outsiders from viewing the interior of your home could be considered.

Call me. Love, Robin.