Preparing your Parisian second home before the season

A Parisian second home is lived in season after season. You come for a few weeks, you close it up, you leave again. Between two stays, the home stands alone: shutters closed, contracts ticking over, and a whole winter that can leave its mark. The difference between a pleasant return and a spoiled arrival is rarely decided on the day itself. It is prepared ahead of time, at opening as well as at closing.

Here is a method for opening and closing the season, designed for a pied-a-terre occupied only part of the year. Nothing complicated taken on its own, but a series of steps that, when forgotten, turn an arrival into a chore.

How do you open the season without nasty surprises?

Opening is the moment you discover the real state of the home after several months shut up. Better to handle it in order, from technical recommissioning through to comfort.

• Air out room by room, check for any smell of damp or mould.
• Put the water back into service, open the supply slowly, check for leaks under the sinks and at the meter.
• Restore the energy: electricity, water heater, boiler or radiators, and read the meters.
• Test the sensitive equipment: refrigerator, hob, taps, toilet flushes, roller shutters, intercom.
• Inspect for the marks of a hard winter: ceiling seepage, blackened joint, a window that closes poorly, signs of pests.

This initial inspection is the best moment to spot winter damage while it is still minor. A trace of damp treated at opening costs one intervention. Discovered too late, it becomes a major job.

How do you make the home liveable from the first hour?

Once the technical part is validated, comfort follows. It is comfort that turns an apartment closed for six months back into a real place to live from the very first hour.

• A full clean, with special attention to accumulated dust and water points.
• Fresh linen: clean sheets, towels and tea towels, ready to use.
• A first round of shopping to stock the refrigerator and the basic cupboards.
• Small details that change everything: bulbs to replace, remote-control batteries, paper and cleaning products.

The aim is simple: that you can set down your bags and live, with no list of tasks to settle before you can move in.

How do you close cleanly at the end of the stay?

The closing sets up the next opening. A home put to sleep badly ends up in poor condition on return, sometimes with damage that could have been avoided.

• Empty and defrost the refrigerator, throw out anything that can spoil.
• Shut off the water at the meter to remove the risk of a leak in your absence.
• Put the energy on standby: water heater off or in reduced mode, appliances unplugged.
• In winter, leave a minimal frost-protection heating rather than switching the radiators off completely.
• Close shutters and windows, check locks and security points.
• Protect what needs protecting: covers, curtains drawn against the sun, sensitive furniture kept out of harm.
• Read the meters one last time and note the values.

These closing readings, compared with those of the next opening, make it possible to spot any abnormal consumption that occurred while the home was empty.

What watch should you keep between two stays?

A closed pied-a-terre is never truly at rest. Mail piles up, damp works away, a contract renews itself. A light watch, at regular intervals, prevents nasty discoveries at opening.

• Collect and sort the mail, flag the items that call for a reply.
• Check for any leak, damp or intrusion.
• Verify that the equipment left on standby is working properly.
• Air out briefly to refresh the air and limit damp.
• Keep contract and insurance deadlines up to date.

The rhythm depends on usage: a monthly visit for a home left empty for a long time, quarterly for a residence used more often.

The season cycle sums up as follows:

Moment	Key steps	Point of vigilance
Season opening	water, energy, equipment, cleaning, shopping	damp marks or seepage to treat at once
End of the stay	refrigerator emptied, water shut off, energy on standby	frost-protection heating if winter covers the vacancy
Watch between stays	mail, checks, airing, deadlines	rhythm matched to the actual length of vacancy

The photo report, your memory of the property

At each visit, opening, closing or a simple check, a time-stamped photo report makes all the difference. You keep a visual record of the state of the home, sequence after sequence.

This record serves two purposes. It reassures you from a distance, by showing you precisely what was observed. And it protects you: in the event of damage, comparing two sets of photos makes it possible to date the incident and present the situation objectively to an insurer or a co-ownership.

Entrusting opening and closing to a dedicated concierge

All of this preparation can be handled on your own, provided you are on site at the right moment and have the time. When the home is not part of your daily life, that is rarely the case: the opening falls before your arrival, the closing after your departure.

At French Realty, these opening, closing and seasonal watch services are billed quoted individually, by the time actually spent and no expiry date. A dedicated concierge takes care of it, knows your property, follows the checklist and sends you a photo report at each visit. We bill our time: the costs of outside providers, such as a deep clean or a tradesperson, are billed to you separately, at their actual rate. Your home is ready to live in when you arrive, and properly put to rest when you leave.

To take the method further, the Owning at a distance category of the Journal gathers every strand of upkeep, our guide on opening and closing the season details each step through the year, and arrival preparation describes the service that makes the home ready before every stay.