Seasonal and Second Home Care
Services
A house you are in a few weeks a year still needs fifty two weeks of attention. We give it that.
Second homes
Why a second home is harder than a first
Second home care means looking after a house you are not living in right now. ABODE closes the house for the season, checks on it while you are away, opens it again in spring, and runs the maintenance a part-time house still needs on a full-time schedule, at the Indiana lakes, in Michiana and on the southwest Michigan shore.
A second home fails in the months nobody is there.
The problems that reach a lived-in house early, a smell, a sound, a draft, a damp patch, reach a seasonal house in March, when you open the door and find out what the winter did.
Home check-ins
$65 to $115/hour
Home check-ins are how that gets caught. While you are away we walk the house inside and out against a checklist built for it, and send you a written report of what we found. Check-ins are billed separately from the monthly plan, hourly, at $65 to $115 an hour.
The rest we treat the way we treat a primary residence.
Every system recorded by make, model and serial number, recurring work broken out by month, and one number to call from wherever you actually are.
Closing the house, and opening it again
Closing is a sequence, and the order is what keeps it cheap. Water off at the main, lines drained, irrigation blown out ahead of the October freeze, heat set where the pipes stay safe, the exterior put to bed and the grounds cut back. Miss the freeze and you are repairing a house in April.
- 01Water off, lines drained, fixtures protected.
- 02Irrigation blown out before the first freeze.
- 03Heat and humidity set for an empty house.
- 04Grounds, dock and exterior put away.
- 05Check-ins through the months you are away.
- 06Spring reopening in reverse, everything tested.
Questions
What owners ask about second homes
Still have a question? Call or text (574) 361-4416, or send it with the form below.
01What does a second home caretaker do?
Scheduling the opening and closing of the house for the season, watching it while you are away, and running the maintenance that a part time house still needs on a full time schedule. Water on and water off, heat set, irrigation blown out, the dock and the grounds, and a vendor at the door when something needs a trade.
02What should you do before leaving a house empty for the season?
Water off at the main, lines drained, heat set, and somebody with a key who is coming back.
We do the closing, then the check-ins while you are gone, then the opening.
03Can you manage both my lake home and main home?
Yes, and that pairing is the point of the service area. Of the firms we could check in this market, none covers both Hamilton County and Harbor Country, so the household with a Carmel house and a lake house has had to hire two of them and hold both relationships itself.
Related pages
If a service is not on the list, we will find a trusted professional to handle it.
Get started
Get the lake house on a plan
Tell us where both houses are. The plan covers them together, and one number reaches us for either one.
We meet you at the property. The goal for every prospect is to meet them at their home.
- We walk the house and record what is in it
- Closing and opening go on the plan by month
- Check-ins run through the months you are away
Request your walkthrough
Both Ned and Luke get an email and a text, and they follow up with you.