Holiday precautions for condo dwellers

The season of happiness and the long New Year holiday are fast approaching. This is the time when many families take the opportunity to go on their annual holiday. Many would leave their homes or condominium units unattended for several days. Just as homeowners informing the police of their absence, homeowners and condominium unit owners should also inform the juristic person of their absence as well.
Checking the home before the long holiday. What needs to be done?
If you are planning to be away from home for three or more days, the following is the checklist that you need to go through and follow for the safety of your property:
1. Check the electrical system: The wiring and all appliances. If defects are found, have them fixed. As you are leaving the house for a long period, make sure to unplug everything including the extension cords. Put the wires on higher ground in case of flooding to avoid shorted circuit.
2. Clean out the refrigerator. Remove leftover food and take out the garbage to avoid food rotting away in the house while you are away. Aside from causing a bad stench, it is also a hotbed for germs and various household pests such as ants, cockroaches and rats that could invade your home while you are away. To ensure absolute safety, remove all fresh items from the refrigerator and pull the plug to avoid the possibility of shorted circuit.
3. Check the water valves. Check all possible points of leakage and have them repaired if necessary. A small seepage can cause serious damages to your valuable properties, especially if left unattended for a long period. So, before you leave the house, shut all the water valves to avoid any undetected leakages.
4. Shut all windows and doors. This is to avoid rain water intrusions and the wind blowing in unwelcome dirt, insects and animals. Aside from dirtying the house, in some cases they could also cause damages.
Aside from those crucial points, the other issues that need to be addressed are your valuables that need to be kept in a safe place, as well as checking that your CCTV system is in good working order. And equally important is you should not forget to ask your neighbours to help look after your residence.
Huge loss arises from unpreparedness From the above advisory on preparing your house before a long holiday, it may not be clear as to how important those precautions are and how disastrous it could be if you ignore them. Plus Property, as the full service of property management especially for residential properties, has run into a variety of situations on a daily basis that have translated into experience. Let us present to you with a couple of cases that can clearly illustrate how crucial those precautions are and the adverse consequences that can occur if you fail to heed them:
Case 1: The renter in Condo A went on a trip abroad for one week. Before the trip, he found that the water hose leading to the washing machine was dripping slightly. He used a piece of cloth to tie around the leak and put a pail underneath to prevent the water from dripping onto the floor. Unfortunately, he did not repair the leak and did not inform the juristic person of the problem.
On his return from abroad after one week, he found the floor was flooded by 5 centimetres of water, resulting in the complete damage to the laminated wood floor all throughout the unit. The small leak in the water hose had turned into a full flow resulting in the flooding of the entire unit. The renter ended up spending more than 100,000 baht to repair the damages.
Some may wonder as to why the water did not flow out under the front door and alerting someone. The reason being that the flooring has been designed in such a way that when the tiling of the floor is being done, the floor slopes towards the balcony to prevent such an incident to affect neighbouring units and the common area.
Therefore, if such a case occurs, if the renter notified the juristic person to repair the leak and shut off the water valve before he went away for a long period of time, such a high-cost incident would not have happened.
Case 2: The owner of Condo B went on a 3-day provincial trip, but forgot to close the bedroom windows. The tenant in the unit located directly above the open bedroom was a smoker and flicked the cigarette butt out his window. But the cigarette butt was blown by a gust of wind into the open bedroom and landed on the bed that was standing against the window. The beddings were ignited and the smoke and flame quickly engulfed the bedroom. As it happened, the owner of the unit never checked the condition of his smoke detector that was not in working condition so it did not transmit a warning to the management office.
It was quite fortunate that the security guard on duty below noticed the smoke billowing out the window and managed to put out the fire before it could damage other units and common areas. In this case, if the unit owner regularly checked his smoke detectors and had closed the windows properly before he went on the trip this incident would not have occurred along with the costly loss of property.
These two cases should serve as a warning that to inspect our house or a condominium unit takes just a little time, but may prevent possible disastrous problems and safeguard your valuable property while you are away for an extended period. In addition, notifying your neighbours and the management to help look out for your property is another way of preventing a possible minor incident blowing up into a big one. Whatever it is, every problem can be prevented – all it takes is everyone of us to be more careful and attentive.