Enlist Help of Family and Friends

Guest blog post from Jessica Mosberg

When leaving to go on vacation, we tend to ask our friends and family for help in watching our house and property. We do notify the police that we are leaving and give them our contacts numbers just in case. We also stop the mail and the newspaper. It looks kind of suspicious when a house has a bunch of newspaper thrown all over the yard or the mail is piling up!
My parents have a key to the house and they come over on a daily basis to check the house out and to feed the dog and let him outside for a while. We like to do this because it looks like there is activity going on around the house and will hopefully keep lurkers away. Maybe once during the week my father will mow the grass for us and do yard work. If it is winter, we usually hire someone to plow the driveway and shovel snow if my father doesn’t feel up to it.
My parents are also given numbers for contacting us, the authorities, our dog’s vet, and any other pertinent numbers we feel they may need. We also have wired alarm systems that we set before we leave and my parents have the contact numbers for them also.