Going away is stressful — you have to make travel arrangements, hire house-sitters, board your pets, pack your bags and ensure you have your tickets, passports and visas. The last thing you want to do when you’re on holiday is worry about what’s happening back home.
Santam has some tips for securing your premises while you’re away. After all, you don’t want to come home to a break-in — and this is all too common during the festive season.
- Make sure your alarm’s working properly.
- Park vehicles in a secure place, under lock and key, preferably somewhere where there’s security guard protection, too.
- Check electrical equipment to make sure there are no potential fire-causing bad connections. Turn off your geyser, too. This will also save you money and is environmentally friendly.
- If your geyser is older than, say, three years, have a plumber check it out. If it floods while you’re away, the damage could incur heavy costs.
- Pack valuable items away so passersby can’t see them from the street.
- Make sure your house-sitter or anyone with access to your home knows how to use the alarm and has a list of emergency numbers to hand.
- Go over your insurance policies or contact your broker to verify the terms of your policy to make sure everything’s up to date and you’re neither over- not under-insured. Make sure you’re covered in case you have a burglary while you’re away.
- Make sure there are at least two people back home you can contact in case of an emergency — and who can also contact you easily and quickly.
- Don’t tell the world — on Facebook and Twitter — that you’re going away. It’s not only your friends who want to know when you’re going and when you’ll be back.
- Don’t leave your spare keys under a flower pot or in the post box. Leave them with someone you trust, along with copies of your flight tickets, passports, itinerary, travel insurance documents, travellers’ cheques, ID books and contact numbers.
- Give the impression you’re at home by installing a timer, if you don’t have a house-sitter or someone checking on the house in your absence. You can set lights to switch on and off mornings and evenings.
- Ask a friend or neighbour to collect your post while you’re away.
- When you’re away, practise commonsense: don’t carry a lot of cash; put your cameras and laptops in a hotel safe when you’re not using them; don’t wear a lot of expensive jewellery; and be careful using ATMs in places you’re not familiar with. Also know where the nearest police station is, relative to where you’re staying
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