I’ve left my home before and locked it up. When we go away for a period of time we turn the hot water heater to vacay, turn the AC up to 80 (or in the winter, down to 60) everything is turned off, shut down, all of it.
Except Christmas, when the tree is on a timer.
It usually has a closed up smell when we return, but it’s gone in an hour or so.
Not this time.
I don’t get it – we were gone for 10 days when Matthew came through. A week last Christmas. Closed House Smell was gone within an hour or two. Always.
We left Friday evening and came back Wednesday and the house was beyond stale! Humidity stale. I’ve cleaned the refrigerator, the showers, the toilets (which we cleaned before we left anyway!) Still stale. We’ve been home over 24 hours. I went and put in new Air Wicks in the wall plug ins. That masks the smell, Â but…
Oh! And critters took refuse here while we were gone. Means we’ll be bombing this weekend. Ulk! I’d love to know how they got in! (What I’m finding are dead, but I want to make sure their relatives staying with them are dead too!)
Just…. ew.
And DON”T get me started on the lovebugs. Too much PDA!!! Bug Porn. Not sexy!
zee's muse 
you need winter to clear up all that shit…lol
below zero
We did not get a cold winter last year. We NEED one this year.
Ours was unusually warm as well, but we just enjoyed it…not this summer’s drought though.
The way I know it wasn’t as hot this year as it was the Summer of Love was the fact my electric bill wasn’t as high. The highest bill this summer was 148.00. Last summer, I had 4 months straight of just under 170.00. And it stayed that high until Matthew came through. It dropped dramatically after that.
I got last months bill yesterday. 115.00. I’m hoping next month will be under 100.00 and it will stay there until May. The lawn guy will stop in November and won’t come back until late March. That will help save some buckies as well. Hopefully between all that, no more clothes shopping and my raise, I can FINALLY do my family room like I wanted. The whole make over will be under 400.00.
Sounds like a good plan!