10. We give certain close neighbours, who watch our house when we are away, our itinerary, with phone numbers. This note also includes the name and phone number of the persons caring for the yard and mail, and our local daughter's phone number.
11. I install light timers on lamps in five rooms. These timers are set to turn the lights on and off repeatedly from dark until nearly midnight at random intervals giving the impression to anyone watching the house from outside that there is someone moving about the house. We adopted this practice after experiencing a burglary attempt by someone who had obviously been watching the house.
12,13. We have timers on the porch lights at the front and side doors to the house, but not on the light over the patio. For this light I use a screw-in photoelectric cell (pec) controller and leave the light turned on when we are away. If we left the light on without the pec controller the light would be on all day, a dead give-away that the house is vacant.
14,15. The snow blower or pool manuals are left in a handy place in case the person looking after the house has a problem.
17. I carry a car insurance pink slip (the proof of insurance card) because we have found the most economical way to have the high rate of coverage ("collision damage waiver") on a U-drive car is to pay a very small extra premium on our car insurance which then covers U-drive collision damage.
25. Since different house plants require different frequency of watering, we try to group them by water needs to make care easier for the house-sitter.
30-31. I do my banking by computer, and get some foreign exchange from ATMs in the countries I visit, so I move some money from my savings account to my chequing account before I leave home. (I try to carry a bit of foreign currency for each country visited to take care of incidentals until I find an ATM. This, of course, is not always possible as Canadian banks do not sell all currencies.)
32. Using Internet banking, I post date payments for all my recurring bills. I do not carry a balance on my credit cards, so I pay what will be coming due on them before I leave. I sometimes even overpay my Visa card so that I have my full credit limit available to me in the event of a problem on a trip.
35. I disconnect all possible electronic devices, including TVs and the VCR, so avoid damage from power surges.
36. I do not normally carry "The Club" in the car but I like to put the extra security on the steering wheel when we leave the car at the airport.
37. Foreign currency cheat sheets are tables to convert foreign currency amounts to US or Canadian dollars and are available off the internet for any country in the world.
40.In fighting fraud, Credit Card companies to-day watch for unusual spending patterns. If you call them they will put a note on your file which will alert them that charges in a foreign country are to expected.
41.Obviously the pool items don't apply if you don't have a pool, but I have included them as you may have some other special requirement that this will remind you of.
51. I have my clock radio come on at the same time of the morning that I would normally get up if I were home.
59. If you decide to turn off the water to the hot water heater, you should probably also turn off the heat (pilot light or electricity) to it.
61. I leave the kitchen radio on so that anyone coming to the door can hear it and assume that someone is close-by.
64. I disconnect the electric garage door openers so that they cannot be opened by a spurious electronic signal
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