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Old 10-13-2007, 11:55 AM   #1
osofine
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Fox River Grove
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Closing up house for 5 months? Mail? Phone?

This will be our first test run this winter as snowbirds to see if we like living in our 2003 3280RL. How does a person close up a house in the midwest (cold winters, snow, etc)? What do you do with the phone, water and garbage service? Do you have your mail forwarded thru a service? Do you drain your house lines and turn off the gas - or turn it down and leave the water on in the house? What do you do with food? Leave food in the freezer? Give it to the kids? We are heading south to Texas in early January. We are new at the whole thing and have only taken our Montana out one time. What do we need to take with us? Any help will be appreciated. We will probably not be boondocking, except maybe at truck stops or WalMarts on the way to and from a destination.
 
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Old 10-13-2007, 12:51 PM   #2
Mrs. CountryGuy
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1.) take with you: clothes for ALL seasons, bathing suits to winter coats, they do have winter in southern Texas.

2.) take craft projects if that is in your interest, square dancing shoes if that is your interest. Just about any sport/craft/interest you have can be persued in Florida, Texas or Arizona or any place else us frozen birds can be found unthawing.

3.) House:

a.) Unless you have hot water baseboard, this is what we do, drain ALL water from pipes, including hot water heater, and get every bit of water you can out of the toilets. Put RV antifreeze in the washer and dishwasher motors and spin it thru, also put it down every drain, and in each toilet, we actually put in the tank and flush thru. It takes a few gallons, but is worth it.

b.) Turn heat down, 45 or even 40 if you dare.

c.) close all drapes, lock all windows, board in the doorwalls (makes me feel safer).

d.) If no family nearby, hire a house sitter to come by a couple of times a month, worth the $$. Also go to your local police station and fill out paper work informing them you will be gone, they will, at least here they do, do extra drive bys.

e.) some people pay to have their driveway plowed, we do not, we live in the country, and just don't do that step.

f.) Phones can be put in suspend mode, that will retain your current phone number, but check with your phone company, to be sure. I am reporting our experiences, your phone company may be different. Best bet, become untethered. Kill the land line all the way, go entirely cellular. Port the home number over to a cell phone, people will call you and have no idea if you are in Wisconsin or Texas, Michigan or Florida. Most of us, unless in really remote rural areas can exist with just a cell. It is very liberating. Does not work if you need that land line for other reasons, like maybe an alarm system for you home.

g.) Garbage, suspend the service if you pay, and/or if the city will let you. We pay an independent service, so we suspend for the time we are gone. Why pay??

h.) Put all cars you won't be driving on suspend as well with insurance, they might call it something else, but all you need is fire and theft if the auto will not be driven. Saves another hunk of change.

i.) Spend the next month or so eatting yourself out of food in freezer and pantry. Turn frig off, freezers off, clean well, let dry, really really dry, stuff them with crumpled up newspapers, shut door. You will come home to no mold, no dirt, no spoiled food, turn the units back on and away you go. Trick is the units must be CLEAN and DRY!!!!! We do not leave food in the pantry either, no candy in the house, mice love it, don't ask me how I know! EWWWWWWWWWWW!!! They particularly love peppermint candy, no matter what any one tells you, I have the proof! GRRRRRRRRRRRR

j.) Mail: IF you are going to be somewhere the entire time you are gone, cept for driving down and back, fill out a temporary change of address. DO NOT DO THIS if you are intending on visiting many campgrounds in Texas, staying only a week or 2 or 3 days, etc, at any given one. IF you are gonna be moving around, have one of your kids or trusted family or friend collect the mail and toss the junk and forward to you when you call and say, okkkkk, I am here for 10 days, mail it now! We had ours forwarded to son and d-i-l a couple of years on the temporary change of address, they sorted and only forwarded the really important stuff.

4.) You can have your taxes done while you are in Texas! Gather your important docs, electronic file, or as we do, mail home to tax preparer, she mails back to us, we sign and mail in. Has worked like a charm for several years.

5.) We take copies of our prescription for glasses, we have most of our meds done via MedCo, but most pharmacies will work with you, Walgreens in North Dakota is connected to the Walgreens in Texas, they can refil your scrips.

6.) If you happen to have dogs or cats on prescriptions, I suggest you take plenty with you, ditto food, prescription food. Getting scrips for pets is harder than your scrips for meds! And vets change their rules on whether they will give you food or not, two years ago, vet would fill my scrips for the yorks, last year I called before we left in December, he said, yes, BUT, by the time I needed food about the first of March, he wanted to see the dog first. Been there before, they just will not honor the scrip. Iritating, you bet!!!

Most important, have fun!!!

Now, lots of other great ideas will come from other MOC members, this is just a bit of our check list for leaving town and heading for our Winter Texan home!
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Old 10-13-2007, 01:35 PM   #3
osofine
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Wow! There goes my diet! we have 2 refrig's with top freezers and 1 big freezer. I have a lot of leftover antelope from my d.h.'s hunting trip last fall. I might have to leave the one big freezer running while we are gone. But we will clear out the other two - burp! We are both working until Christmas then retirement starts Jan 1st. I like the idea of using a cell phone as the home phone. Lots to think about. So many decisions - so little time.
Sherry
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Old 10-13-2007, 01:40 PM   #4
Mrs. CountryGuy
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Sherry,

Some MOCer's have freezers in their units for stuff like your antelope.

There are TONS of ideas here at MOC

KEEP READING!

Congrats on the retirement!!
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Old 10-14-2007, 05:17 AM   #5
simonsrf
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One thought about your mail. We had our mail forwarded to a UPS mail box. We call or email the UPS store and they (for a charge) send our mail wherever we want it sent. We tell them how long we are going to be at that location and they send it the cheapest way. We have also had our mail sent to 'general delivery' which has worked just fine.

Another idea, cancel all catalogs, fliers...junk mail. It took us a year to get that all cleaned out, and now our mail expenses are minimal.

Before beginning our full time adventure, we spent 18 months of NOT buying anything except things we knew we would have to carry or use up before leaving. It is real amazing how much stuff there is in the kitchen, or in the pantry that you can use up. We shopped for items that would compliment what we had on hand to get rid of both. If you're not going to carry it, 'dump it' was our motto. This sure made it a lot easier moving into the little fridge, small kitchen, small cabinets...We now don't miss any of that stuff. If we buy something new, something old has to go. This method keeps our budget healthy, and we don't spend our time packing and unpacking like we see so many 'weekenders' doing.

Guess we're cheap, but we just recently used the last little bar of motel soap.....have to buy soap next week after 30 months.

Good luck, it is a chore, but if you think it out, you can manage the most minute details to where you don't have to worry about anything! The experience of MOC will certainly help you.

Only 96 days until the Quartzsite rally!
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Old 10-14-2007, 06:45 AM   #6
osofine
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Thanks for advice. I know we will be filling our kids pantries this winter - but after living in our Monty for 5 months straight we will find out exactly what we need - and don't need. When we get back in May we will leave again in late May and head out for another month or so (love the "or so" free to go or stay)for Montana and parts west. Then back until Sept when we will go to Wyoming for a month or so and then home until Christmas. I think by the end of the year we will know if we can full time or long time. In between time we will be fixing the house for sale.
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