Moving into a new flat: the first jobs before you settle in

Finding the stopcock and knowing what it does

Every flat has a point where the water supply can be shut off, and you want to find it before you need it, not while water is running down the wall. In most Tallinn flats it sits under the kitchen sink or in the bathroom, often behind a small hatch; in panel buildings from the Soviet era there may also be a shared shutoff in the stairwell riser cupboard, which the korteriühistu or building manager controls.

Turn the stopcock closed and open a tap to confirm the water actually stops. Do this once, gently, so you know it is not seized. A stopcock that will not turn is worth having freed up early, because forcing a stiff valve during an actual leak often ends with it snapping in your hand.

If you cannot find a stopcock at all, or the one you find does not affect your flat's water, that is a question for the building manager or a plumber, not something to leave unresolved. Knowing where to turn the water off is the single most useful piece of information in the whole flat.

The fuse board: what each switch actually controls

Open the fuse board and look at what is there. Older flats often have simple screw fuses or a small number of miniature circuit breakers with no labels at all; newer builds usually have a row of labelled breakers plus a residual current device (RCD) that trips on a fault or an earth leak, cutting power to a whole section at once.

Go round the flat switching one breaker off at a time and noting what loses power in each room. This is easiest with a second person, one at the board and one checking lamps and sockets, but it can be done alone with a phone light left switched on. Write the result on a sticker or a piece of paper taped inside the fuse board door.

If the board has no RCD at all, or the wiring looks old and improvised, cloth-insulated cable and haphazard splicing are common enough in prewar Tallinn buildings, this is where to stop and bring in an electrician rather than keep testing by hand. Electrical work from us starts at 49 € per hour, and a look at the board is a sensible thing to book in the first week.

A quick test of every socket and switch

A cheap plug-in socket tester, a few euros from any hardware shop, checks wiring polarity and earthing in seconds and is worth buying before you move a single box. Go round the flat and test every socket, including ones behind where furniture will end up, since those are the ones nobody checks again for years.

Test every light switch and every fixture, including outdoor sockets on a balcony if there are any, and note anything that does not respond, flickers, or feels warm to the touch. A socket that gets warm under light load is not something to wait on.

Faults found this early are usually still the previous owner's or landlord's problem to fix, or at least their problem to have known about, so it is worth testing before you have obviously moved in and lived with the fault for a month.

Smoke alarms and other basic safety checks

A working smoke alarm is a legal requirement in Estonian homes, and checking one takes a minute: press the test button and listen for the alarm sound, then check the manufacture date printed on the back, since most alarms are only rated to work reliably for about ten years regardless of the battery.

If there is no alarm at all, or the one there is looks old and yellowed, replacing it is a small job you can do yourself with a battery-powered unit from a hardware shop and a screwdriver. While you are at it, check for a fire extinguisher or fire blanket in the kitchen and note where the nearest building exit is if you are unfamiliar with the stairwell.

• Press the test button on every smoke alarm and listen for the sound
• Check the manufacture date on the back of the unit
• Replace anything older than about ten years or with no date at all
• Locate a fire extinguisher or blanket in the kitchen if there is one
• Note the building's stairwell exits

Locks, doors, and who else might still have a key

You have no real way of knowing how many keys exist for the front door of a flat you have just bought or rented: previous tenants, a cleaner, a relative who used to water the plants. The only way to be certain is to change the lock, or at minimum re-key the cylinder, as soon as you move in.

Check the door itself while you are at it: does it close flush, does the frame show any damage, does the deadbolt engage smoothly without needing to lift or shove the door. A door that needs to be shouldered into its frame every time is both an annoyance and, eventually, a break-in risk as the frame gets worse.

Lock replacement is one of the more clear-cut jobs to hand off rather than attempt with a set of pliers and hope: from 60 € per job, it is done properly the first time, with new keys cut and the old cylinder gone for good.

What to write down, and where to keep it

All of the above is only useful if you can find it again in six months when something goes wrong. Keep a single page, on paper or as a note on your phone, with the stopcock location, a labelled fuse board, the smoke alarm dates, and any fault you noticed but have not yet fixed.

A copy taped inside a kitchen cupboard door is oddly effective, since it is somewhere you will look during an actual emergency, unlike a folder buried in a drawer. It is also the first thing worth handing to whoever helps with the next odd job, since it saves them working out the flat from scratch.

If the list of small unfinished jobs is longer than you have time for, that is exactly what an odd-jobs call is for, from 39 € per hour with a call-out of 25 € within Tallinn that comes off the bill if the work goes ahead.