Its a good idea, When you go on a trip out of town for a few days and leave your home unoccupied to inform a friend or a trusted neighbor, and leave them with a Key.

Have them come over and check to see that your power and such is still running. I left on a trip for a week, I had tried to remote to my home PC, and tried to call my answering machine to check messages, but noting would answer up, to make a long story short,

The "Smart Meter" that the Electric Company put in had died and the power was out to my residence. I was able to get a friend to go over and check things out and have the Power Company replace it but they required a person to be onsite.

If I hadn't done that I would have come home to a defrosted Freezer and most likely dead Fish in the tank as well.

Typical of these Dumb Meters the utilities are installing. All those "smart" meters do is give the utility ability to charge different rates for electricity at different parts of the day.

They finally got around to installing water meters where I live and the water bill for my home went down. Everyone else in town is screaming that their water bills have skyrocketed. Well... my household has two people, so we should pay less since we use less. A lot of the households around here have 6 or more people so they should pay more as they use more.

Personally, I think it's a great idea to discourage huge family sizes by utility rate pressures. If you have to pay more for the 8 bundles of crotch-fruit borne per woman around here, perhaps you'll have fewer.

I second the idea of having a trusted friend check your house while on vacation.

Good Advice

However, I have no opinion on family size and utility usage.

I came home form Christmas to an old, dilapitated house I was renting. I was gone for 5 days.

It was -35c that week. House was heated by little gas furnaces, ancient things.

I came home, walked in the front door, noticed it felt cold, and caught the smell of fresh water. It smelled like a lake.

Went to the steps to the basement... there were 15 steps, but I could only see half of them. The water was up to my hips! I waded through it to turn off the burst water pipe, waded back upstairs, and my legs were totally numb.

How did I get rid of the water? I lived in a tiny town in farming area; while wondering what to do, a "honey wagon" (truck that empties sewage tanks) drove by, owned by a farmer; I asked him if he wanted some water. He pulled up, hooked up his hose, shoved the end through a basement window, and sucked up the whole damn basementful of water that afternoon.

And I moved out the next day .

And I have never, ever, left my home for more than two days without having somebody check on it since !

I agree with all this generally. If you're not home, have someone checking on the house.

When I moved west I left my home on the east coast locked up for two months before I went back to empty it out. I made sure that I had trusted friends going by twice a week to check on it. I had turned the water and electricity off at the meters, drained the water heater, and cleared the gutters, before I left.

All I had to do when I returned was turn everything back on at the meters, fill the water heater (and made sure it was full by turning on the hot water taps in the house as it filled, so the air could escape out of the heater), then turn it on.

Everything worked just as it did before I left. Better safe than sorry on this stuff.

--LT