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You’re ready to fly south for the winter, don’t let the thought of leaving your vacant Niagara-on-the-Lake home unattended add to vacation stress – Attendants Home Watch Services will help bring peace of mind while you’re away for weeks or months of the year.

Local resident and owner of Attendants Home Watch Services Nancy Hart is personable, friendly and professional.

Following a comprehensive 100-point checklist she and her husband Keith created through their years of experience in the industry, they diligently ensure your home is regularly checked while you’re away.

While it’s possible nothing could happen in your absence, Hart says something as small as a leaky faucet or a flat battery in a thermostat can cause expensive damage if gone unnoticed.

The longer something is left unchecked the worse it can get, Keith says.

“Last February raccoons made their way into one customer’s home, chewing the wiring and shutting down the furnace. Without an arrangement for diligent checks the results could easily have been catastrophic and compounded by a denied insurance claim,” Hart says.

Instead the customer returned to a warm house now inaccessible to such pests.

And Hart says this was not an isolated case. Every year there are several such examples of tens of thousands of dollars in damage prevented or mitigated though regular home checks. Recent examples include failed sump pumps, frozen sump pump lines, failed appliances, heating system failures, and the list goes on.

Hart says even with the best will in the world we can all make mistakes. One customer inadvertently left for a short trip with a shower still running, in a home that had hot water on demand.

“It was like walking into a sauna and took the fans running all night to restore the home to normal,” said Hart.

Fortunately, in this case the only downside was a large water bill, but it could easily have been much worse.

“I have to stress the importance of having someone check your home when you’re not there. Whether it’s a week or five months you are away. You need to have someone go in and make sure everything is in order,” Hart says.

It’s more than walking in the front door; reliability and diligence are key. She encourages everyone to refer to home insurance policies and talk to their broker to ensure they are aligned in terms of expectations.

And though she says it’s common and can work well for vacationers to ask friends and family to watch their home while away, “you really need to be sure it’s being done properly.”

Attendants provide a full 100-point report at the time of each visit, which she says can be invaluable in documenting due diligence as a homeowner.

“That’s a big ask, from a friend or a neighbour,” she says, “It can be secondary to them.”

It can also be “difficult to reciprocate in kind” for such a service and if something goes wrong a friendship can be ruined.

Long-time client Eric Barton says he would rate Attendants an 11 out of 10.

“Nancy and her husband – they are first rate. They are prompt, they’re accurate and they are caring. They understand the nature of a couple who are a couple thousand miles away from home and we have complete confidence in them,” Barton says.

He travels to Florida for four months of the year. He says Hart watches everything, “right down to the minute detail – I am very, very happy with them.”

Based out of NOTL, the company being local is important to Barton, he says.

He also says that he feels they truly care about their customers.

“Even if I have something as small as if I go up north for the weekend and I ask them to water the plants, instantly it’s looked after.”

Contact Attendants Home Watch Services now for a free consultation and departure checklist before leaving for the winter.

Contact Attendants Home Watch Services now for a free consultation and departure checklist before leaving for the winter – at 905-464-1925, or by email info@homewatch-attendants.com.