How do you Prep your home?

[Duncan]

This is a question for you if you have a second house in France which you DONT rent out...

My mum has  a second home in lower Normandy which I help her out with occassionally.  She goes maybe 4 times per year, for a few weeks stay at a time.  Every time she goes there, the first day or 2 (or 3) are taken up with getting the house ship-shape and up to speed - mowing the lawns, doing the hedges, cleaning the house through etc, etc.

What do you do to get your house ship-shape and up to speed, in the absense of actually paying a management firm to get it sorted for you? What advice would you give?  What do you do?  Or does this house-prep not bother you? Or is there a way to get someone to do it for you?

Thanks

Duncan

[sid]

My in-laws have a holiday home not far from us and we check it over the winter, but they don't ask us to do any "prep" work. However, the garden is a bit of an issue, and they have started to resent the time it takes to cut the grass and hedges etc., sometimes 2 or 3 days, so we have now engaged a gardener for them, to come every 6 weeks from March to October; this has made a huge difference; the garden looks tidy during the growing season, and they can spend more time relaxing, especially after the long drive down. The interior doesn't seem to take long; they cover the furniture with dust sheets.

 

 

[ericd]

Each time we leave our house, we make sure everything is in tip-top condition and all beds/settees/armchairs are covered with sheets. When we get back (every two months at the moment), we go through the routine. The next door neighbour has turned the hot water Cumulus on.

Make fire if cold or if neighbour has forgotten!!! plug telephone and internet, put some music on, sweep the floors, quickly dust the furnitures, workbenches and tables with a wet cloth, remove all the protective sheets and shake outside, make the bed(s), bring the shopping inside along with the bags (now travelling "light"....), pour an aperitif and start dinner. If we have time we put a washer load of what was put in the laundry basket We are usually done in 45mn.

The grass is cut the following day. Job done.

[mint]

I was a neighbour to second-hand owners in the past.  We did all that has been described:  turned on the hot water, the fridge, the freezer, made a fire if it was cold, cleaned out fire places left full of ashes by the owners when they left, took the rubbish to the poubelles and, in between their visits, checked the house, emptied the basins left to catch drips from the roof when it rained, let in workmen, forwarded letters and all the stuff you could imagine that needed doing.

After a couple of years of doing this, there came a visit when the neighbours complained that OH hadn't filled the ice-trays for the wife's G & Ts.  After that, I started to resent more and more all the to-ing and fro-ing that there was to do.  For example, there was one night when there was a terrific storm (just before a visit) and OH and I were out in the middle of the night, getting soaked, to make sure the bâches were secured over their wood pile so that they would have dry wood when they came.

Well, as regular visiters to the Forum would know, we left that house soon after that.

Eric, you know I consider you a friend and your neighbour obviously is a far better person than I am, so please do not take the following comments as applying to you!

As for the OP and others depending on neighbours to do all this work, at the very least, give them nice gifts, offer to pay them something or better still, get in paid help because, I can tell you categorically, it's ain't a lot of joy being the leant-on neighbour!

[ericd]

Thanks for the compliment Sweet. Our neighbour is a friend and "only" gives keys to whoever happens to be working on the house, make fire the afternoon we arrive and tuen hot water o. We are very gratefulfor what he does and there is always a little something for him when we go back. I agree with you, these people should NEVER be taken for granted....... As an example of last winter, we received a phone call whilst we were waiting for the flight to tell us that our pipes had burst etc. etc. This gave us plenty time to call our plumber in who was already hard at work fixing the leaks when we arrived. NEVER take them for granted.

[Gardian]

[quote user="Duncan"]What do you do to get your house ship-shape and up to speed, in the absense of actually paying a management firm to get it sorted for you? [/quote]

I really don't understand how it could get done without paying somebody.  Well, of course you could rely on the goodwill of somebody like SW17, but that is a task that soon loses its glamour!

Our Belgian neighbour's house is their 2nd home & they're very fortunate in having our other neighbours who are prepared to take care of cleaning and generally preparing the house before their visits. Money exchanges hands, entirely appropriately.

From talking to people like our neighbours, the biggest problem is finding someone (be that an individual or a small Company) that is reliable and efficient in dealing with their requirements. It seems to me that unless you're very lucky (as with our neighbours), you have to bite the bullet and use a professional firm.

BTW, our neighbour dropped some hints about me looking after his garden for him. Errr, no: I know what he pays + I'm past having someone being picky about how much and what I've done.  Sums up the 'use a professional firm' view IMO. 

 

[Loiseau]

I have a kind neighbour who will drop in and turn on the heating and hot water a day or two before I arrive.

I try and leave it as immaculate as possible when I go home, as it's so dispiriting to find it untidy when you arrive after a long drive.

I used to have the mega-gardening problem, too. But now i pay somebody to come and cut the grass, which is a HUGE weight off my shoulders. I can just about manage the hedges, with a blitz on them in about February.

Angela

[Frederick]

I have a friends who just happen to be my neighbours. I would not dream of asking them to prep my house after winter.

They keep me informed on our Skype chats if after bad storms my house is still standing They have the key to the gates and they go in to pick herbs we grow from the garden when they need to and that is an arrangement that suits us well .

s my neighbour. I would not drea

[YCCMB]

Interesting, this.

I cover stuff with dust sheets, and remove them when I arrive. My neighbour pops in and opens the shutters during the day of my/our arrival, and that's about it. I switch off water and so on when I leave, and I can't explain to my neighbour how to activate our boiler which has a control panel that NASA would be proud of, so that obviates the need for them to feel they might do stuff, and for me to feel I may be putting upon them. Usually, if it's winter, they'll happily pick me up from the airport and feed me that evening, giving me time to stick the heating on and fire up the electric blanket whilst enjoying their hospitality - which I generally repay later during that visit.

During the spring and summer if we're not there, the neighbours will do a cursory run round our smallish garden with their ride-on mower. It's something we've never asked them to do, but the grandkids are old enough and keen enough to want to use the mower, so it's probably only a five minute job for them, and means we've a bit less work to do on our arrival.

I hope I don't take their kindness for granted, and I don't expect anything to be done for me, but then, on the other hand, I leave the house clean and tidy when I go, and with the help of a few dust sheets, it seems to stay that way until the next trip.

My neighbours have had a set of keys to my house through three sets of owners, so I'm sure they don't mind. However, I don't expect them to provide us with a "service", and I'm just very, very grateful that they are a point of contact with a set of keys in case there's an emergency, or just to pop round every so often and open the shutters.

[Duncan]

So the general concensus seems to be

1. Awesome, friendly, much-appreciated neighbour (I guess that's the luck of the draw on who you get as neighbour), or

2. DIY when you get there and spend the first day or 2 doing it all, or

3. Go Pro - Pay someone periodically or just before you arrive to come in and sort it all, inside and out

Does that seem about right?  Any other options?

[ericd]

[quote user="Duncan"]So the general concensus seems to be

1. Awesome, friendly, much-appreciated neighbour (I guess that's the luck of the draw on who you get as neighbour), or
2. DIY when you get there and spend the first day or 2 doing it all, or
3. Go Pro - Pay someone periodically or just before you arrive to come in and sort it all, inside and out

Does that seem about right?  Any other options?
[/quote]

As mentioned above, we do ours (kitchen, main living room/dinning room/2 bedrooms and bathroom) in 60 minutes flat before cracking the first bottle open. Cutting the grass is another issue.

[Théière]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]During the spring and summer if we're not there, the neighbours will do a cursory run round our smallish garden with their ride-on mower. It's something we've never asked them to do, but the grandkids are old enough and keen enough to want to use the mower, so it's probably only a five minute job for them, [/quote]

Ahh don't you just love management and their 5 minute jobs! [:D]

[YCCMB]

Trust me.[:D] Unlike the majority of our fellow Brits, we opted for the "tiny garden" choice. The hardest part is positioning the mower so that all of it is on grass...

[Frecossais]

We are some of the second home owners who spend the first three days getting straight when we arrive in France, but that's mostly grass cutting and disposal . I'm not great on housework.

We have an elderly neighbour who switches on our fridge and freezer in the morning of the day we arrive bless him. Other than that he just keeps an eye that the roof hasn't blown off or burglars haven't visited. We didn't ask him, he just does it and on the occasions when we have been burgled (two), or that our roof was damaged (once during a storm), he phoned us, and in the case of the roof, arranged a temporary covering until we could get there. We are endlessly grateful to him, and I know he likes it when we are there, because we see each other every day, and that's important to his feeling of security, since we are fairly isolated.

Last autumn my OH put up a new porch roof for him when his was damaged by hailstones, and we cut his little bit of grass when we cut our own. We share bonfires too, so I don't feel that the help is all one way. Like others on this forum, we try to find some little thing we think he will like, we've brought him English wine, whisky, ginger beer, cheeses, shortbread etc, but don't get the impression that he is particularly taken with any of them except the shortbread.

The garden is a problem, and I think the time is approaching when we will be looking for some little entreprise to cut our grass before we come. We won't be in France until May this year and I dread to think how high it will be.

[Duncan]

Thanks for all your answers and replies - great to hear my mum isnt alone in her conundrum of house-prepping.  She has a largish garden (7 acres) so the outside is a big part of the picture.

Personally I quite enjoy the outside house prepping - less so the inside part.  I am happy as a pig in the proverbial when outside doing the mowing, hedges, logs etc.  I was out there in Normandy with a friend last year (he needed some time out) for a few days - he and I mowed the lawns, trimmed trees, hedges etc and got it looing good outside.

And it occured to me that there are probably other people like us who are quite happy doing the outdoors house prepping (and probably plenty who are happy to do the indoors prepping too). 

And there are probably plenty of people with second homes with gardens and houses that need prepping.

Could the 2 meet?

Now, IF the trust issue were gotten over - if you trusted someone enough to be at/in your house - would you let them stay for a few days while they prep up your house?

They get a no-cost break - you get the house prepped.

Now, I know the trust part is a biggy, and there are plenty of other details to iron out, like gas and elec usage etc - but would you let someone who you had gotten to trust, interviewed etc, got to know - would you let them use your house for free in return for getting your house up and ship-shape for you?

[Frederick]

Duncan wrote : Now, I know the trust part is a biggy, and there are plenty of other

details to iron out, like gas and elec usage etc - but would you let

someone who you had gotten to trust, interviewed etc, got to know -

would you let them use your house for free in return for getting your

house up and ship-shape for you?

No....I would not  . There is a risk with this no mater how  well you know  the people . Unless its family and you would not mind the inconvenience of having with them living with you if in the event of accident illness . or some other  circumstance crops up  where they cant leave when planned to do so ... Brittany  ferries strike kept me in  France longer than expected last year for example .

[Duncan]

[quote user="Frederick"]No....I would not  . There is a risk with this no mater how  well you know  the people . Unless its family and you would not mind the inconvenience of having with them living with you if in the event of accident illness . or some other  circumstance crops up  where they cant leave when planned to do so ... Brittany  ferries strike kept me in  France longer than expected last year for example .

[/quote]

Hi Frederic,

I hadnt considered that as part of the picture. If I'm staying at eg a Gite and get ill or one of the kids do, I've never attempted to stay on.  Is that a possibility?  I figured that usually with a holiday etc, at the end of the agreed time, you make your way home, any which way you have to.

In a similar way, I had envisaged an agreement being in place to say the 'Preppers' would agree to be gone by a certain time/date.

Hope that makes sense

Duncan

[YCCMB]

Me neither. I think you're assuming that people with second homes resent or dislike the house prepping. Personally, I'm wondering what on earth could take me so long, or be so much hassle to do myself, that I would want a complete stranger to come and do it for me at the "expense" of having them living in my home for a "few days". In my permanent home, I've never employed a cleaner or gardener, preferring to do it myself. OK, there will almost certainly be people who don't especially enjoy doing the "prepping", but to be honest, if you discount gardening, I'm at a real loss to understand what's really involved that could justify someone spending enough time in my house to warrant them actually staying there for a few days. With the shutters shut and the judicious positioning of a few dust sheets, plus ensuring that I leave the place clean and tidy when I leave, there's probably at most a couple of hours' work or less needed to get my not-especially-small house up and running. After that, I've sometimes got as much as a couple of months to relax and enjoy being in the house before I leave, so however long the opening up of the house may take, it's a tiny proportion of my stay.

Aside from which, there's the thorny issue of liability. Frederic makes one point. What happens if my "prepper" accidentally electrocutes themselves, or leaves the water running, or runs over their foot with the lawn mower? Will they have insurance? Who will be responsible for any damage to the property, if it occurs on their watch? Who would intervene in the case of a dispute whereby they claim there was a leak in the pipes when they arrived, but you suspect they were actually the cause? I'd rather worry about how long it might take me to remove and fold the dust sheets than worry about what other damage or problems may be caused by a complete stranger in my home.

[Cendrillon]

Betty said, "With the shutters shut and the judicious positioning of a few dust

sheets, plus ensuring that I leave the place clean and tidy when I

leave, there's probably at most a couple of hours' work or less needed

to get my not-especially-small house up and running. After that, I've

sometimes got as much as a couple of months to relax and enjoy being in

the house before I leave, so however long the opening up of the house

may take, it's a tiny proportion of my stay."

Ditto, opening is not the problem and takes no time, leaving and closing the house is much more time consuming IMO.

[NickP]

Not a problem at all, as Betty says leave as you want to find it. We spend most of the summer in France so garden is no problem and one of my pleasures in life is gardening that's why we bought the house. OK; we do leave the keys with neighbours when we are not in residence, but we repay them by bringing shopping over to them and when they go on holiday we repay the compliment by keeping an eye on their property. With modern technology I can monitor our house from the UK. What, pay some nosey git to poke their nose in my house ? No way![:D] [:D]

[Frederick]

The things we do to prepare for winter .....we even collected conkers we have put on the floor in corners as I was once told spiders don't like them. They probably find it hard to string them get frustrated. Then leave the house because it seems to work we don't find many

[YCCMB]

If, as I am beginning to think, the OP has taken his mother's experience as typical and assumed that there could be a business opportunity there, it doesn't look as if there's a huge market....

[Duncan]

Interesting to hear - this is mostly what I suspected - the cons outweigh the pros :)

I guess the Prepping is part of the joys of second homing

Pay for pro - or DIY

[YCCMB]

Not to mention the fact that it's a holiday home, not a show home.

[Manon]

I had to laugh when I read Frederick's post - we did the conkers thing and yes, it seemed to work ( apparently that's why chestnut wood is often used in bedrooms ). However, the mice loved them and we keep finding that the conkers had been moved and then we found them, half eaten, in piles under logs etc. One night we were woken by a terrific din, something going ' bang, bang, bang, bang ' - the mouse had dropped a conker down the wooden stairs !