Going up to the cottage this summer for some R & R? Make sure your home is fully renovated and ready for the long winter season ahead while you're away.



"Contact a well known contractor with a good track record through a reputable company which hires contractors for every specific home renovation job to help improve your personal home living.

"Arrange for someone to come in once or twice a day and take in the mail, open curtains in the morning and close them at night, and cut the grass.

"Illuminate dark corners of the yard with motion-sensing floodlights, replace burned-out bulbs on exterior light fixtures, install inexpensive motion-sensing lights near entrances, garage doors, walkways and porches to ensure your home is safe during your leave

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"Place landscape lights, porch lights, a few interior lights, and a radio on different timers so it looks - and sounds- like somebody is home.

"Ensure your home is properly sealed from the exterior and interior to prevent bugs from ruining material inside and outside of your Toronto home.

"Invite your neighbors to park their cars in your driveway to give the illusion of people coming and going.

"Have a professional landscaper keep your grass trimmed, and plant in your garden to keep the lawn neat, and your home's outdoor aesthetically pleasing. This particular home improvement is one many people avoid, and therefore lose value on their homes.

"Leave an itinerary, a phone number and a house key with a trusted neighbour so they can contact you if something goes wrong with your house.

"And finally, bolt patio doors and install deadbolts on all exterior doors and interior doors leading to the garage, basement or solarium. The deadbolt should be at least an inch long and the strike plate should be secured into the door framing stud.

If your home is broken into during your leave, you may have to do major renovation on your home, and home improvement of this magnitude is never cheap. Household items can be broken, stolen, and sentimentally irreplaceable. Suffering this set back, you may have to renovate your current home as a result of breaking and entering. Furthermore, you may have to move to a completely new home to avoid any future incidents.

Follow these tips prior to leaving for your vacation, each tip will prove vital to keeping your home safe, renovated, and beautiful for the remainder of your vacation.