What is the biggest security risk to your home when you go away?

Well if we`re talking natural disasters, that obviously depends very much upon the area in which you live.

But generally speaking, leaving an empty house is the biggest risk to your property when you go away on holiday.

So what shall we do? Get the house sitters in? Pay them? You could get the neighbours to come round everyday to open and close the curtains every morning and evening. To pick the post up and put the newspapers in a pile. To feed the cat. To turn off the burgular alarm if it goes off for no reason.

It would be a whole lot easier to do a home exchange. You wouldn`t only be saving hugely on the costs of the holiday, but also on money for the house sitters, or the favours that you would be asking of the neighbours.

It´s like free insurance. Some people worry about the security of risks of home exchange. When in fact, if you consider it objectively, it gives you a much securer way of leaving your home when you go away.

You would be in the other family´s house. So there you have it, bound by mutual interest to respect and treat the other person`s home as if it was your own.

On top of this, they will be the general task managers of keeping everything in order for you, and keeping your fortress occupied and protected from harm whilst you`re away.

A win win situation!

So. Keys under the flower pot. Or under the doormat. Does anyone do that anymore? I don´t think so. But there is something really quite romantic about it. Something really very World War 2 era, or something very teenage there, lingering somehow.

Which of course brings us to the question of: how do we transfer keys when we do a home exchange? The most obvious thing to do would be to leave the keys with a neighbour. Safe, reliable, easy and simple.

But what about if you don´t have a neighbour you would feel comfortable asking this from? It could happen. People don´t connect as much anymore. Gone are those playful days of a gentle loan of a cup of sugar, or leaving the front door unlocked so that neighbours can come and go as they please. (Like, to access inside of the house.) So some people might not feel comfortable asking a neighbour to do this.

Or what if the other home exchangers have flights that will arrive at 4 o´clock in the morning and you just can´t quite bring yourself to ask Bob and Sue (or Geoff and Viv) to wake up in the middle of the night to do you this favour.

Well. There are other ways of organizing these things. Firstly, depending on your preferences, you could send a copy of the keys via special post delivery. It´s a bit extreme, but possible nonetheless. Obviously don`t put your address on the envelope.

If you don`t feel comfortable with this, you could organize for a family member, or friend to come around on the day that the guests will arrive, and get them to open up and welcome in the new family. Or, if it´s a “4 in the morning” type scenario, they could put the keys in an envelope and hide them in a specific and predetermined point outside of the house. (Flower pot!! It´s screaming out to you!)

Another way to do things is to get the exchanges to overlap a little, so that the family stays with you one day, and that way you can do everything by your own hand. Often home exchangers do like to meet their fellow exchangers, as it puts a nice smiley face on top of everything, and makes you feel more comfortable.

There are fifty ways to leave your keys to the incoming exchangers. You just need to be a bit imaginative, and don´t be afraid to ask for a bit of help from a neighbour or friend. Most people are more than willing to do it.