Watch the empty house on your street
Probate and repossession leave houses empty for months. A neighbor noticing is usually the only security they have.
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Why it lands
An empty house deteriorates in ways that are cheap to prevent and expensive to fix: a slipped tile becomes a rotten ceiling, a burst pipe in January becomes a ruined floor. Often the owner is a family dealing with a death from two hundred miles away, with no idea anything is wrong. The person best placed to notice lives next door and usually assumes someone else is handling it.
How
If you know who is dealing with it — the agent's board has a number — say you are next door and will ring if anything looks wrong, then do. Clear post from the letterbox so it does not signal an empty house. Do not enter the property or take on anything structural.
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