From time to time, we may find ourselves in need of leaving our home for a little while. You might find that you’re heading over to another country to spend time with your family members, or perhaps you have a temporary placement with your employment and need to bring your family along for half the year.

Regardless of your motive, what’s important is that you enjoy peace of mind while you focus on that which you have to attend to away from your usual home base. This means making sure the home is cared for before you leave, such as ensuring all of the power outlets are switched off, that every lock is secured, and that your garden is in relatively good condition before you leave.

But there are some additional provisions you may wish to keep in mind as you leave, also. These can allow you to ensure that despite your heading away for a while, your home needn’t miss out on being a secure place to call your own. With that in mind, let’s consider:

Store Precious/Expensive Items

A 5 x 5 storage unit can help you store your valuable and expensive items in a space that is managed and secured around the clock. This means that even in the unlikely event that you’re targeted for a break-in, you won’t have to worry too deeply about your most essential values and keepsakes being taken from you, while insurance may cover everything else. That’s no comfort, of course, but it’s a necessary measure that can reduce the impact should this difficult event occur.

Fill Your Driveway

It’s healthy to ask your neighbors to park on your driveway while you’re away, perhaps for a period of months. If you ask the neighbors either side of you to use your driveway during this time and perhaps buy them a bottle of wine for the effort as they return, it’s a win-win on their side and your home can look occupied while you’re gone. Thieves are much less likely to target homes that seem to be occupied with changing vehicles on a consistent basis, but if they see a driveway totally empty for weeks or months at a time? That might arouse interest if your house is unlucky enough to be noticed.

Consider Automatic Lights

Automatically-timed lights you place within a socket and let illuminate your space when you’re not there can help you give the impression of a home being lived in, which like our previous effort, helps deter those trespassers looking for an easy mark. These lights may be set to turn on and off as the evening moves into night, and perhaps for an hour in the early morning. This way you can make sure that you don’t waste your energy, but that the house gains the impression of being totally lived-in and cared for.

With this advice, we hope you can head away for a little while, knowing that your home is cared for and that you’ll return to a worthwhile space.