With summer travel on the horizon, now is the perfect time for managers and residents to assess and refine their strategies for handling short-term vacancies in their buildings. When residents are away, no matter the duration, pre-planning and taking some basic precautions helps get ahead of any potential issues that may arise as a result of their absence. 

What are some of those issues? According to managers, when a unit is empty, the biggest concerns are usually related to water, pests, and life safety. Pipes can leak or burst, food or water left out can attract vermin, and mail and packages can accumulate, creating a security risk. 

​Safety First

​The first line of defense against such problems are residents themselves; taking a few simple steps before leaving town can make all the difference. A pile of mail and packages in the mailroom or hallway tips off everyone in the building that nobody’s home, and can leave units exposed to vandalism, theft, or break-ins. Pausing mail delivery and auto-ship subscriptions or asking a neighbor or friend to collect mail and watch for unusual activity is a smart move. Residents should also remove all garbage and perishable food from their unit before they leave to deter pests and prevent foul odors, and unplug nonessential appliances to reduce energy waste and electrical risks. In colder months, thermostats should be adjusted to a safe level to prevent frozen pipes. Residents can even install water leak sensors under sinks or other high-risk areas that will send a notification to their phone if abnormal moisture is detected.

Emergency Access 

It’s also important for a property manager or super to be able to access units in case something does arise while a resident is away. First responders and managers can (and will) break a lock, or even a whole door in order to neutralize a leak, fire, or other issue; providing a manager or super a straightforward means of accessing an apartment minimizes the need for emergency entry, and can save hundreds of dollars in repair and replacement costs.  

“We’ve had residents give us their keys for emergencies,” says Anne Marie Resicher, Director of Field Services of Evergreen Management Group in Bedford, New Hampshire, “and we keep them in a lockbox. This allows issues to be addressed quickly, reducing damage to your unit, neighboring units, and possibly even common areas of the building.”

Depending on the size of a building or HOA, it may not be practical for property managers to obtain and keep keys to every single unit. In those cases, Resicher advises residents to leave a designated emergency contact information with their management office—or a friendly neighbor or board member, in the case of self-managed communities—and consider keeping a spare key in a secure on-site lockbox. 

“There are no legal requirements for residents to inform management if they’re going to be away,” says Reischer, “but we certainly make those recommendations to unit owners. ​If we don’t have access to a unit, a small issue can easily grow to affect the entire building.

“According to the legal documents, emergency access is necessary if it’s a life safety issue or something that’s going to severely damage the envelope of the building,” she continues. “In those cases, we can use forced entry to resolve the emergency.” 

​While residents may be understandably hesitant to leave a spare set of keys in their management office, or may dislike feeling obligated to notify their manager or super that they’re going away, from an operational perspective these minor inconveniences are just part and parcel of multifamily living—well worth the hassle if they can prevent minor issues from becoming major disruptions for everybody in the community. 

Boots on the Ground

While proactive, conscientious residents are a powerful defense against a spreading leak or other vacancy-related problem, they obviously can’t report an issue that they can’t see. That’s why in addition to residents establishing emergency contacts and means of access to their unit before they leave for a vacation or work trip, having alert, proactive management and staff on site to keep an eye out for signs of trouble is a huge part of maintaining the safety of residents and buildings alike. Additionally, professional home watch services help to provide owners with an important layer of oversight to their units by offering scheduled visual inspections to unoccupied units. “Alarm system failures, water flow detectors, or lack of power may not be detected immediately if a unit is vacant,” Reischer says, “so response time can lengthen and otherwise manageable issues can escalate quickly. This type of service can be set up ahead of time so technicians can be scheduled to check on the unit.” 

Planning is Everything

​Scott Wolf, CEO of Boston-based property management company BRIGS, concurs, and says that planning ahead provides peace of mind to traveling residents and their neighbors alike. For example, he reminds residents to check the weather forecasts for home before they leave so they can secure or bring inside things like plants or balcony furniture that could be damaged or blown away by heavy rain or wind. 

Wolf also strongly recommends not completely shutting down the air conditioning in a unit during summertime travel. While the AC certainly shouldn’t be blasting 24/7 when no one is occupying the unit, he recalls a situation in which residents shut down the air conditioning and sealed all the windows before they left for a long vacation; weeks later, they came home to a mold problem. Thanks to sweltering temperatures and no ventilation, “The unit had filled up with humidity,” he says, and the mold took hold. “It’s not common, but it can definitely happen.”

Pre-trip preparation matters in colder months as well. “Residents sometimes turn their heat way down or leave their windows open a crack and allow cold air to get in,” Wolf says. This can cause water in the pipes to freeze, which in turn makes them expand “and when they expand, they burst.” That of course can lead to serious water damage far beyond the walls of the unit where the leak originated. Wolf recommends that boards and community managers get ahead of this by sending out reminders to residents about how to safely close up their apartment before an extended absence, especially around holidays. 

​“Putting out a notice advising residents to maintain the heat at a certain temperature, to leave kitchen and vanity cabinet doors open to allow pipes to get extra heat if needed, even shutting off the water to the washing machine (if you have one) are simple precautions,” Wolf says. ​

​​Board Business

​Tangible problems like unattended leaks and stolen packages aren’t the only ones raised when residents are away; absent owners and shareholders can also lead to administrative challenges. It’s hard enough to get board members and residents together for meetings any time of the year, but particularly so over the holidays, summer break, and other times of year when many people choose to travel. If quorums aren’t met, time-sensitive decisions often can’t be made, which can lead to everything from missed inspection deadlines to unpaid bills. 

Thankfully, these days virtual meetings and electronic voting can help ease this burden, says Wolf. The ability for trustees and residents to attend meetings and vote remotely “has opened up functionality. It’s raised attendance, even when people are local,” he notes, “and has definitely helped bring more people to meetings.” Laws around remote voting and other business functions vary, so Wolf advises management companies and trustees to check in with their legal counsel to determine what business is allowed to be conducted virtually.

Safety, Security, Serenity​

Ultimately, keeping your association running as smoothly in August or December as it does any other time of year comes down to planning and communication. Having a plan in place before such an emergency event occurs—and crucially, making sure residents are aware of and understanding that plan—reduces the cost, disruption and acrimony of breaking into a unit during an active emergency situation, or dealing with the fallout after the fact.  

“Even if you go away for a week, a lot can happen in that time,” says Reischer. “Having clear expectations and a plan in place really benefits everybody.” Making arrangements and preparing ahead of time enables residents to rest easy during their time away. 

Kate Mattiace is associate editor of New England Condominium