Talk Quesada forum

scubydoo wrote:Hi all may have been said before but a cheap way is to leave salt in bowls it absorbs moisture an goes hard Aldi have big bags cheap!!

Cheers

Just what I said...and easy to throw the old salt away when it gets dirty and replenish. (Washed out ice-cream cartons are good).

Always turn the water off at the water meter, it could cost you thousands of euros if a pipe splits after the meter and your not there for months. We just went out for a few hours and came back to the house to hear water gushing in the kitchen. We waded through the flood and found that the flexible braided pipe to the tap had ruptured.
It has ruined the kitchen units.
I would like to have a irrigation system for my plants when I leave and am working with a idea of a holding tank on the bedroom balcony to gravity feed water to my plant pots.

Put sink plugs in all sinks this helps stop water evaporation. If the water evaporates you have a open pipe to the sewers, this also applies to the water in the toilet bowl .
I have found these things out from experience. I have arrived at my home to find a smell of sewerage and cockroaches due to water evaporation.
Put a heavy bottle of something over shower tray water outlets. Fill a large plastic bag with water and place down the toilet bowl to create a seal and close the lid.
The alternative is to use your holiday home more often ( preferred option.)

Sort of glad I read this post, you see I've left my new ground floor apartment for the last 6 wks and we'll be there late this coming Friday,never did any o that as we had 1 day in it as owners then had to fly back, beds made up, no cover, all still water uncovered, wardrobes closed,but water,/electric off, so I'll make a checklist for when we leave as it will be stood quite a while, and thanks, love these posts,

Definitely sparay around the edges of rooms with Zum or Oro to deter cockroaches.

If you are a property owner in a community and leave it unoccupied for any length of time it is recommended that you shut off your water supply at the meter cabinet as the owner is responsible for the pipe between the meter and the property as one of our owners had a bill running into thousands of Euros when a leak occurred when he was home in the U.K. If you do not have a key, your president will have and should provide you with a copy.

In my opinion it’s well worth paying to have a keyholder who will pop in every week or two to check that all is well with your property, flush the toilets, run some water down the sinks and just make sure that there hasn’t been any problems caused by floods, wind etc.
If there are any problems then the keyholder can let you know, and organise remedial works if needed, which is far better than walking into a damaged property when you arrive for what you think is going to be a relaxing couple of weeks in the sun.
I get our keyholder to put the fridge/freezer on a couple of days before we arrive so that we can call in at the supermarket on the way from the airport an put our shopping away as soon as we arrive.

We don’t turn the power off, as we have CCTV and the camera’s and router need to be powered up all the time, but we do turn off/unplug as much as possible.

One of the other things that we have done is to compile a ‘property handbook’ where we keep useful information about the property. This is handy for the keyholder and any guests who stay when you aren’t there, but I find it equally useful for my own benefit as I have contact details and account numbers for utility companies all in one place, so if I need to contact them in an emergency I’m not rummaging around trying to find the info.
It’s also useful as a checklist of things to do when opening-up and closing down the property at the beginning and end of the stay. I find it amazing how easy it is to forget small details about the property when you don’t live there full time, so having a place where you can write these things down is really handy.

Pete.

Great advice

This is really what forums are for...

..well done for asking the question..

Here here Isn't it great that the forum seems to be getting back to normal!!