Responsibilities of House Owners

I'll never tire of using the famous saying from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility," in everyday life. You can apply it to many areas of our lives simply because it's so truthful. When you look at politics and politicians, all the wars, arguments, corruption, and wasted lives and resources, this responsibility seems forgotten. But it doesn't mean that if we're not politicians, army commanders, corporate directors, and other bigwigs, we don't have a big responsibility. Let me give you a classic example of a great responsibility: being a parent. This is maybe the most important and common kind of serious responsibility that we have and that sadly many people don't take as seriously as they should.

Another hugely important and widespread responsibility is owning real estate. Owning a house is one thing, but keeping it in good shape is quite another. So to put it simply, it's a responsibility for your own well-being (and the well-being of your family). However, this doesn't mean that your duties start and end with cleaning your house from time to time. It may not look bad from outside, but without a proper home inspection from time to time (either by yourself or a hired professional), it won't be long until some sort of a problem appears and your home turns into a run-down spookhouse.

Not all problems are visible — especially when it comes to material fatigue, rusty pipes, and other problems with plumbing and leakage. Sometimes nothing may visibly leak through the material, but only into the material, rotting wooden joists and beams in your attic or basement. That's why you should always keep an eye out for your property and never underestimate the need for some roof and gutter maintenance. If you ignore these problems, they won't disappear. The damage will only grow as well as the repair costs. Plus, if you eventually decide you want to sell your residence, who would buy a house with several serious unresolved defects?

I don't want to scare you any further, but when I saw this nice infographic about house security and residential burglaries in Vancouver, I was simply astonished. Astonished by the human stupidity. If you take a look at the statistics provided in the article and infographic, you'll see that 60 per cent of all residential break-ins occur during daylight hours and 50 per cent of them occur through unlocked doors! Unlocked doors, seriously? Whenever I move to a new place, one of the first things I do is to change the locks, and I never choose a cheap option. And what's so bad about an alarm system that so many people are still refusing to have one installed? There are still some people who even like to keep a spare key under the doormat, on the door frame, or in another obvious place near the entrance. Or even worse, some folks don't even lock their home when they leave, just begging burglars to come in. These behaviours are beyond my comprehension. Just imagine yourself in this situation: you're taking care of your house, doing regular inspections, repairs if needed, keeping your home cozy, and then making that huge misstep by not taking house security seriously enough. It would be a waste, wouldn't it? Remember that alarms, security cameras, and other measures that let you sleep better are a lot cheaper than buying and repairing your stuff after a break-in.