As I’m getting ready for Hurricane Dorian to possibly whack Florida, I’m reminded that some of the things I do before a storm are the same ones I do before I leave for a trip.
When I’m out of town, a friend comes in periodically to check on things and my goal is for her to find nothing.
One thing I do is good for anyone at any time. It will show you if the stuff in your freezer thawed and refroze. Freezers can malfunction at any time, not just during a storm. It can be dangerous if you eat food that has been thawed and then refrozen and you can’t always tell by looking at it.
A cup with frozen water in it will tell you if something bad happened in your freezer. Take a small plastic cup and fill it with water. Freeze it. Once it is frozen, stick a coin on the top of the ice. Put it in a zipper bag and back into the freezer.
If you come home from a trip and the penny is either in the bottom of the cup or anywhere except the top, you know your freezer thawed and refroze. Throw the food out.
I do several other things before I leave. The main one is turning off the water to the house. I have known several people who either returned home to floods or received phone calls that water was coming out their front door. These are calls I do not want to get.
As part of that, I also turn off my ice maker and water heater. There is no reason to heat water nobody is going to use, and if the water heater leaks, there will be no water to fill the tank and it could cause a fire.
I also turn up my air conditioner a few degrees so I don’t pay to cool the house with nobody here. In the winter, turning down the heat does the same thing.
I wash my sheets and towels and run my dishwasher. I also clean my house. I cannot stand coming home to a dirty house.
What things do you do before you lock your door and head out of town?
Leave some lights on a timer so it looks like someone is home –