Jun. 27, 2012
Now that summer is officially underway, the Armijo family is hitting the road to a family reunion out of state. As we pack up the minivan, it seems like a good time to revisit tips for keeping your home safe while traveling for anyone else who may be kicking off their summer adventures.
If you’re a regular reader, you know that our Labrador-hound Libby is a constantly “entertaining” fixture in Casa de los Armijos, but she won’t be making this trip with us because 75 pounds of enthusiasm and muscle contained in a minivan with five is not a recipe for a happy vacation. Fortunately, we have good friends with dogs of their own, so we trade off dog duty when each of us travels, and we’re grateful they’ll be keeping her busy while we’re gone. If you’re not so lucky, consider boarding your pet or hiring a dog sitter.
We subscribe to two daily newspapers and receive more than our fair share of mail. In fact, I think our mail carrier prides himself on finding new and creative ways to stuff our vast stack of mail into that tiny metal square in our community mailbox. To avoid raising his ire and prevent all my mail from being crumpled beyond recognition, I put a hold on our mail using this handy link and asked a neighbor to grab the papers for us.
We have three lights on the front of our house that already operate on timers, so we replaced a few missing bulbs to ensure they’re nice and bright each night while we’re gone. That will keep the house from looking empty and make it less attractive to would-be thieves.
Most important to me, the neighbors in our cul-de-sac tend to look out for one another, so we always let them know we’ll be gone. For our part, we’ve noticed garage doors accidentally left open, caught water leaks before they became catastrophes, and corralled pets back into backyards, and I’m glad to know we can count our neighbors to do the same for us if we need it.
I hope your summer is full of adventure, excitement and new experiences. Travel safely!
