{"id":6380,"date":"2021-05-19T22:12:06","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T22:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/s37407.p1377.sites.pressdns.com\/resources\/en-au\/?p=6380"},"modified":"2021-05-19T22:12:06","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T22:12:06","slug":"holiday-planning-and-your-home-and-pets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/holiday-planning-and-your-home-and-pets\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Planning and Your Home and Pets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&gt;&gt; Looking for a housekeeper or cleaner? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/en-au\/profiles\/housekeepers\">Find one in your area now.<\/a><\/strong><\/p><p><strong>It&rsquo;s holiday time! <\/strong>We all deserve a break from the ordinary to relax, unwind and come home refreshed. But, like it or not, <strong>prepping for a significant holiday is vital <\/strong>&mdash; more so if you&rsquo;ve got a house, pets, children, post, a garden, appliances &mdash; in short &mdash; a life! Whether you&rsquo;re having friends help out or you&rsquo;ve hired a house-sitter and\/or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/en-au\/profiles\/pet-care\">pet sitters<\/a>, here&rsquo;s the<strong> list of basics you need to prep before you go.<\/strong><\/p><ul><li>General house prep for holidays involves <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/en-au\/profiles\/housekeepers\/cleaning-lady\">cleaning<\/a>, tidying and paying any bills that will be due while you&rsquo;re gone.<\/li><li>If you have an alarm system, make sure to set it for &ldquo;holiday mode&rdquo;. Read the alarm manual or speak with the company representative if you don&rsquo;t know how to do this.<\/li><li>Talk to your insurance company and find out the protocol for accidents or break-ins that occur when you&rsquo;re away from home. Keep these tips in mind:<\/li><li>Sliding doors are a real target for break-ins &ndash; make sure yours are secure while you&rsquo;re home and away.<\/li><li>Invest in automatic motion sensors that turn lights on and off.<\/li><li>Keep your car in the driveway. If you need it for driving on your holiday, ask a neighbour to park in the driveway.<\/li><li>Don&rsquo;t set your automatic lights to go on or off at the same time each day and night; it&rsquo;s a sure sign that you&rsquo;re away.<\/li><li>Make sure newspapers and mail do not pile up in your mailbox or front porch.<\/li><li>Arrange for lawn service if you&rsquo;ll be gone for more than a few days.<\/li><li>Make sure your doors and windows are properly secured.<\/li><li>Ensure that all of your smoke detectors are working properly.<\/li><li>Tell one or two trusted neighbours that you&rsquo;ll be away, but don&rsquo;t broadcast it to the whole neighbourhood.<\/li><li>If you&rsquo;re employing a house sitter, have a task list ready plus contact numbers in case of accidents, emergencies or questions.<\/li><\/ul><h2>Post<\/h2><ul><li>Ask a trusted neighbour to collect your post and newspapers every day so it&rsquo;s not piling up on your front porch or in your letterbox &ndash; this is a sure sign that no one&rsquo;s home!<\/li><li>If you can&rsquo;t get a neighbour to assist while you&rsquo;re away, you can temporarily stop your post through your local post office; ask for the appropriate forms at least a week ahead of time. The post office will hang on to your post for you to pick up when you return.<\/li><li>If you&rsquo;re hiring a house sitter or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/en-au\/profiles\/pet-care\">pet sitters<\/a>, ask that person to bring in your post and leave it in a neat pile on the table.<\/li><li>Generally, collecting post is a task that does not require payment. But if someone&rsquo;s coming to your home solely to collect your post, a small tip or a gift is always appreciated.<\/li><li>Call your credit card company and let them know when and where you&rsquo;ll be traveling. They can note this on your account, so there won&rsquo;t be any doubt when you&rsquo;re purchasing items or renting hotels far from home. Likewise, if your credit card gets charged locally while you&rsquo;re away, the credit card company will know something is up. You can also have them call you before processing any payment that they deem suspicious.<\/li><\/ul><h2>Garden<\/h2><ul><li>If you&rsquo;re going to be gone for more than a few days, you&rsquo;ll want to ask a neighbour or hire someone to water your plants or garden for you.<\/li><li>If you&rsquo;re going to add this task to a house sitter&rsquo;s or pet sitter&rsquo;s task list, you may want to pay him extra depending on the size of your yard and the amount of work that needs to be done.<\/li><li>With conservation on everyone&rsquo;s mind, the consensus is that in-ground plants and grasses should be watered in the morning no more than twice per week. Potted plants may need more frequent watering, especially if it&rsquo;s very hot or sunny outside.<\/li><\/ul><h2>Pets<\/h2><ul><li>If you&rsquo;re not taking your pets on holiday with you, you need to think of coverage in these main areas: food and water, exercise, medical, shelter, etc.<\/li><li>Whether you <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/en-au\/profiles\/pet-care\">hire a pet-sitter<\/a> or have a trusted friend help you, they need to know:<\/li><li>How often and how much to feed your pets (and where to find the food)<\/li><li>How often to change and refill water bowls, kitty litter, etc.<\/li><li>Where and how often to exercise and play with your pets<\/li><li>How to exercise your pet: daily walks, running in park or backyard, etc.<\/li><li>All medical and veterinary contact names and numbers, should there be a medical emergency. If your pet is taking medication, be sure your sitter knows how and when to administer the appropriate dosage.<\/li><li>The type of shelter you expect for your pet. Is there a doggie door for the pooch which needs to be unlocked during the day and then locked at night? Does your pet sleep in a cage? Should the pet left outside or inside at night?<\/li><li>What type of grooming your pet needs in your absence<\/li><li>Leave enough time for your pet-sitter and your pets to get acquainted before you leave.<\/li><\/ul><p><strong>&gt;&gt; Looking for a housekeeper or cleaner? <a data-track-click=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/en-au\/profiles\/housekeepers\" payload='{\"event_type\":\"Article Clicked\",\"origin\":\"Inline Link\"}' redirect=\"true\">Find one in your area now.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&gt;&gt; Looking for a housekeeper or cleaner? Find one in your area now. It&#8217;s holiday time! We all deserve a break from the ordinary to relax, unwind and come home refreshed. But, like it or not, prepping for a significant holiday is vital &#8212; more so if you&#8217;ve got a house, pets, children, post, a <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/holiday-planning-and-your-home-and-pets\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1160,"featured_media":39261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"enable_toc":false,"care_reviewed_by":0,"care_post_updated_flag":false,"care_updated_date":"","last_update":"2021-05-19","view_count":79,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"member-type":[41],"vertical":[61,89],"platform":[2],"class_list":["post-6380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","member-type-seeker-en-au","vertical-house-home-en-au","vertical-home-care-advice-tips-en-au","platform-resources"],"acf":[],"created":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6380"},{"taxonomy":"member-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/member-type?post=6380"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=6380"},{"taxonomy":"platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/platform?post=6380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}