A Rockwood couple is helping keep vacant homes safe and free of unwanted occupants until their owners return – be they snowbirds gone south for the winter, houses under renovation or otherwise unlived in.
Offering home-watch services throughout the GTA, Total Home Watch is a Rockwood-based business that performs scheduled visits of unoccupied or vacant houses to protect them from potential issues like damage, pests, theft or squatters that can occur when a property owner isn't living on-site.
"If I can pick out (a house nobody is living in), I'm pretty sure sketchy people can figure that out...So having somebody coming into your house weekly like we do, obviously is going to help make sure that nobody's there, that you've locked up properly," said Rick Phillips, who co-owns the business with his wife Leanne.
"It's funny, I tell people to make sure that they lock up before they leave and I'm gonna guess that 50 per cent of the houses I go to have doors and windows that aren't."
Looking to start a business to help with retirement, the couple said they were already used to checking in on Leanne's parent's home during the winter and decided to create Total Home Watch in late 2021 to help their neighbours in similar predicaments after seeing several posts about break-ins in their area.
"We were out walking the dogs in winter and we noticed that there were a lot of driveways that hadn't been cleared," said Leanne. "We knew right away that these people were probably snowbirds and that they were away for the winter and we just kind of thought that it was a little unsafe, like a red flag that nobody's home."
While the client base was mainly vacationers to start, Rick said they've had several real estate inquiries in the past couple of months and anticipate the trend will continue.
"One gentleman passed away in Georgetown and his kids didn't live anywhere nearby so they needed somebody to take care of everything ... and then they sold the place," said Rick. "I've got another gentleman in Guelph right now that actually lives in Saskatchewan and just bought a house (here) so he's not moving into the house for a couple of months ... we've got quite a few clients that do that."
The first thing Rick tells every client is to call their insurance company and familiarize themselves with their guidelines, especially around the 30-day rule as timing is the biggest difference between an unoccupied home and a vacant home.
In Ontario, when a home is left unattended for longer than 30 days, insurance can consider it vacant and the existing home insurance might be voided.
"Some (hire us) just for insurance purposes. They want to make sure that they're covered. We've had some that are very protective and want to be sure that nobody's around; you know customers with 14 cameras around their property, but everybody's a little bit different," said Rick. "We don't outright ask them what it is they're worried about, but you can read between the lines."
Some insurance companies charge an extra fee if they know you're going to be gone longer than 30 days and Rick said he thinks that's why some people are "very hesitant" to call their insurance despite the risk.
Vacant property insurance is typically 50 per cent higher than a regular homeowner's policy.
"I've got property managers that are reaching out to us because they don't want the liability from empty houses. They just don't want that responsibility. So they're asking us to take it," said Rick.
Rick said he or Leanne typically visits the vacant property every 48 hours and uses a checklist from the owner to verify the home, utilities and appliances followed by a report.
Calling the first visit the most critical, Rick said the most common problems they discover are insects like bees and wasps making nests, but electrical and weather damage also occur.
"Knock on wood, we've never come across a squatter, but from my discussions with other people, it's pretty obvious when somebody's breaking into a house," said Rick. "It's usually an access point that's going to lead us to know if something's wrong."
To make your house look lived in, the couple advised making sure someone is around to do basic tasks like rotating the lights, grabbing the mail, mowing the lawn or clearing the driveway.
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
