Most travel nurses have adventurous spirits. We love going to new places, meeting new people, and having new experiences, and we will happily spend months upon months on assignments. Yet, most of us still enjoy the feeling of coming back home — unless that home is in severe disarray.
Leaving a home unoccupied for months on end comes with risks. Homes require constant maintenance to keep safe and sound; neglected houses quickly become derelict. Empty homes are also at greater risk of crimes, from theft to vandalism to squatting. If you want to return from your travel nursing adventures to a healthy, happy home, you need to prepare your place for your absence before you leave.
Essential Maintenance Tips for Traveling Nurses:
Maintenance Tip #1: Get Your Home in Tip-Top Shape
As tempting as it might be to put off maintenance and repairs until you return, any issues your home is suffering now will only get worse. There are simply some repairs you shouldn’t put off, like your HVAC, your roof, your electrical system, and other systems that are essential to your home’s safety. Try to ensure your home is in perfect working condition before leaving on assignment. Consider scheduling routine inspections and engaging in an aggressive cleaning campaign.
If your time and budget are limited, you might prioritize your repairs, focusing your effort on the most essential systems in your home, like your roof or HVAC. Then, after a bit of cleaning—particularly ridding your home of food, plants, or other things that might go bad in your absence—you should be good to go.
Maintenance Tip #2: Schedule Some Key Services
Your home will need regular attention even after you are gone, especially if you are away during seasonal changes. Consider scheduling essential home services, like landscaping to keep plants alive or pest control to prevent icky infestations. Many travel nurses ask friends or family in their hometown to look after their properties. Still, you should consider home management companies that know how to look after vacation houses, short-term rentals, and other properties that may be vacant for long stretches of time.
Maintenance Tip #3: Invest in Security
You need to spend some time shoring up your home’s defenses, making it appear well-loved and lived-in to deter criminals. It might go without saying, but your first step should be acquiring strong locks for all doors and windows in your home. Consider doubling up your locks and adding security bars to prevent multiple forms of forced entry. You should consider securing every potential entry point — especially the ones you may not think of as often as your front door. This includes prioritizing garage door security, which involves steps like covering windows with privacy film, securing the emergency release cord, and installing motion-activated lights around your garage.
Illumination is another critical component of sound home security. Persistent darkness in and around a home is a good indication that a home will be an easy target, so you should install lights in crucial areas to deter crime. Consider adding motion-activated floodlights around any entry points and timed interior lights on a timer that make it seem that someone is inside, even if you’re away. You can even program your television to turn on or invest in a TV simulator light to improve the hoax.
Smart security solutions might help your mental health because they allow you to maintain some control over your home while you are away. Smart locks, cameras, lights, and other tools give you access to your home through the internet, so you will need a strong and secure internet connection if you plan to use these tools. Smart security can also be useful if you plan to make your home into a short-term rental or otherwise give other people access to the property while you are on assignment.
You should take advantage of your adventure opportunities — and part of that involves putting down worries about your home. Fortunately, with just a few preparations, you can keep your home safe and sound while exploring the world and doing good. You may still experience some homesickness, but you can relax knowing that your home is properly cared for.
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