What actually goes wrong while you're away, and how to check for it

Bathroom and kitchen: where water does the most damage

Water finds the gaps other problems don't. A slow drip under the kitchen sink or a washing machine hose that's been due for replacement for two years can, given a week or two with nobody to notice, soak a floor, drop through to the flat below, and turn into a claim against your insurance rather than a mop-up job.

If you're away for more than a few days, find the stopcock and close it. In most Tallinn flats it sits under the kitchen sink or in the hallway cupboard with the water meter; in older buildings it can be inside a floor hatch. Closing it does nothing to the boiler or heating, only to the taps, so nothing freezes and nothing keeps running if a seal fails.

Look under the sink, behind the washing machine and dishwasher, and around the toilet base for damp, rust on a fitting, or a hose that's gone stiff and cracked. Any of these is worth fixing before you go rather than after you get back to a wet floor. A plumber's visit for exactly this kind of check starts at 45 € per hour, and it's a cheap hour compared with drying out a ceiling.

Freezer and fridge: what happens if the power drops

A short outage while you're home is an inconvenience. The same outage over a week away is a freezer full of spoiled food and, once it thaws, water finding its way across the kitchen floor. This matters most in summer, when a warm room does the rest of the damage quickly, but a full freezer that loses power in winter can leak just as badly once you're back and it starts to run again.

There's no need to switch the fridge or freezer off before a normal trip, but it's worth checking the door seals close properly and that nothing is jammed in the door. If you're going away for several weeks, it's reasonable to run the freezer down and empty it rather than trust it to keep going unattended.

A chest freezer in a garage or storage room is more exposed than one in a heated flat — check whether the space it sits in could lose heating altogether while you're gone, particularly in an unheated summer house over winter.

Breaker panel: which circuits are safe to switch off

You don't need to kill the power to the flat. What's worth switching off at the breaker panel is anything that has no reason to run while nobody's home and no reason to fail safely on its own: the water heater if it's electric, sockets feeding things you've unplugged anyway, underfloor heating in rooms you won't use.

Leave the fridge and freezer circuit alone, obviously, and leave anything the building itself depends on — communal lighting, entry system, anything shared with the korteriühistu — well alone. If your panel isn't labelled clearly enough to tell which breaker does what, that's worth sorting before you need to make a quick decision about it.

If a breaker trips repeatedly, feels warm, or you're not confident reading your own panel, that's not a job to guess at. An electrician can label it properly and check nothing's marginal, from 49 € per hour — better done once, calmly, than worked out from a hallway with a suitcase by the door.

• Water heater circuit — off if electric and you'll be away more than a few days
• Sockets you know are empty — off
• Underfloor heating in unused rooms — off or turned down, not off if it's your only frost protection
• Fridge and freezer circuit — always on
• Communal or building circuits — never touch

Windows, doors and lighting: what makes a home look lived in

An empty-looking home is found out fast, and it's usually the small details that give it away, not the absence of a car. Check every window latches properly, not just closes, including any that don't get opened often, like a bathroom or stairwell window. A window that looks shut but isn't latched is an easy way in and one of the more common problems in older Kalamaja and Nõmme houses where frames have moved slightly over the decades.

A timer on one or two lamps, set to come on in the evening, does more than a hallway light left on continuously, which reads as exactly what it is after the first night. If you have smart plugs already, use them; if not, a mechanical timer from a hardware shop is enough.

Don't leave a spare key under a mat or in a plant pot near the door — it's the first place anyone looks. If a neighbour or family member needs access, give them the key directly rather than hiding one on the property.

What else to go through before you turn the key

A few smaller things are worth thirty seconds each on your way out, mostly because they're easy to forget precisely because they're small. Unplug anything that heats — iron, hair straighteners, the oven if it has a standby light — and anything that doesn't need to draw power while you're gone, like a second TV or a games console.

Take rubbish out rather than leaving it in a bin under the sink for two weeks, and check nothing perishable is left in a fruit bowl or bread bin. If you have houseplants that need watering, arrange it before you go rather than the morning you leave.

Ask someone to collect post and check the letterbox isn't overflowing — a stuffed letterbox is as clear a sign of an empty home as a dark window.

If something already looks wrong before you go

If you find damp, a hose that's already leaking, a breaker that's warm to the touch, or a window that won't latch properly, it's worth dealing with before you leave rather than hoping it holds for two weeks. A small leak found now is a repair; the same leak found by a neighbour while you're away is a much bigger one.

For a loose latch, a sticking door, or a lock that needs adjusting, that's ordinary odd jobs work, from 39 € per hour, and usually quick. For anything involving water or wiring, it's worth getting it looked at properly rather than turning a valve or flipping a switch and assuming it's fine.

If you're not sure whether something is urgent, a short description or a photo is usually enough for us to tell you whether it needs sorting before you travel or can reasonably wait until you're back.