A practical, printable checklist for Southwest Florida snowbirds preparing to close up a seasonal home. Work through it room by room before you head north, then keep a copy for next season. It covers the things that quietly cause the most expensive summer surprises down here: humidity and mold, slow plumbing leaks, hurricane prep, pests, and security. At the end, we note honestly where a checklist stops being enough and where professional home watch takes over.
Book My Free First InspectionYou can do almost everything on this list in a single focused afternoon before you leave. It is built specifically for a Southwest Florida home that will sit empty through a hot, humid, storm-prone summer — Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples, Marco Island — not a generic "going on vacation" list.
Print it, walk the house with it, and check each box. The goal is simple: come back in the fall to the home you left, with no musty smell, no water stain on the ceiling, and no surprise on your insurance renewal. For a deeper room-by-room version you can also see our Florida vacant-home checklist page.
Why this matters in Florida specifically: water-damage restoration averages around $3,800, and Florida mold remediation commonly runs $2,000 to $10,000 or more. Most of that damage starts small and grows slowly while the house is empty — exactly the kind of "gradual" or "neglect" damage an insurer can deny if no one was checking on the home.
In a Florida summer, the single most important thing you can do is keep the air conditioning running and the humidity controlled. A closed-up house with the A/C off will hit 80%+ indoor humidity within days, and mold can take hold on walls, furniture and inside closets in under two weeks.
A thermostat reading "set" the day you leave tells you nothing in July. The risk is a tripped breaker, a failed capacitor, a frozen coil or a power blip three weeks later — with no one in the house to notice the temperature climbing.
Plumbing leaks are the most expensive thing that happens to empty Florida homes, because a small drip runs unnoticed for weeks. The simplest protection is to remove the water entirely.
Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30 — the entire time most snowbirds are away. You will not be here to put up shutters when a storm is three days out, so everything has to be done before you leave.
After a storm, the damage isn't always the storm — it's the days of heat and water intrusion afterward with no power and no A/C. The faster someone gets eyes on the home, the smaller the claim.
An empty, quiet house is an invitation. Florida's ants, roaches, rodents, wasps and the occasional uninvited critter move in fast when there's no activity.
A visibly unoccupied home is a target. The goal is to make the house look lived-in and to know immediately if something is wrong.
Nothing says "nobody's home" like a stuffed mailbox, a brown lawn and flyers on the doorstep. Keeping the outside maintained protects both the home and your standing with the HOA.
Here's the honest part. This checklist gets your home into excellent shape on the day you leave. What it can't do is watch the home for the next four to six months. And in Florida, the day you leave is almost never the day something goes wrong.
The A/C you set perfectly can trip a breaker in July. The plumbing you checked can develop a slow leak in August. A storm can pass through in September. A checkbox ticked in May tells you nothing about the house in October — only a person physically walking through the home, on a schedule, can catch these things while they're still small and cheap to fix.
We walk your home on a regular schedule and check A/C, humidity, plumbing, pests, security and storm damage — the exact risks above, every visit.
Every inspection lands in your dashboard with dated photos, so you can see your home with your own eyes from anywhere — and you have proof of care for your insurer.
If something's wrong, founder Torbjörn phones you, explains it plainly, and coordinates the repair before a small problem becomes a $10,000 one.
It's also about your coverage. Many Florida policies limit or void coverage after 30 to 60 vacant days, and insurers can deny "gradual" or "neglect" damage when there's no proof anyone was checking on the home. Documented, regular home watch protects the house and the claim. Plans start at $99/month, and your first inspection is free.
Do the checklist — then let us watch the home while you're gone. Licensed, bonded and insured. Serving Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples and Marco Island in English, Spanish and Swedish.
Book My Free First Inspection Call (321) 607-2750