Cabin Chronicles

Unwanted animals visiting your garden and eating your prized perennials? Strike fear in the hearts of deer and other animals with Eartheart’s Organic Fence, a natural animal repellent with no offensive odor. What’s worse? Animals eating your flowers or the smell of some off-the-shelf deer repellents?  If you have ever attempted to use some of the invisible fence sprays found at home improvement and garden stores, you know the horrible smell I am referring to. There is an odorless alternative to those stinky sprays that is made from organic ingredients. It’s made by Eartheart, and it is called Organic Fence. You cannot find this in stores. It can be purchased directly through Eartheart. But if you are a Home Halo customer, you can purchase it through us, and we can deliver it to your Brainerd Lakes Area home or cabin at no extra charge, and you avoid paying shipping charges. Purchase Organic Fence and say good riddance to tulip-tongued rabbits!

It’s April, and for many of us this means it’s time to start thinking about deep cleaning at the house or cabin. It seems like there is a new cleaning product on the market every day. But do we really need a blue solution to clean our windows or a purple liquid to clean our floors? I don’t think so! People always ask us what cleaning products we recommend. Our response is simple. It’s water. We tend to get funny looks from people when we tell them that. When did it become strange to use water and a little soap to clean? Call us old fashioned, but some hot water with rags or nonscratch scrubbies are generally all we ever use, and they work just fine. For really tough stains (like hard water or rusty iron stains from well water) we do use commercial products like CLR or RustOut, but this is only in extreme cases. So this year when you are doing your spring cleaning, think of the environment, your family’s health, your own health, and just use plain old water rather than harsh chemicals to do your spring cleaning.

Christmas Eve 2009 Minnesota snow storm

We are having a white Christmas here in Minnesota at Home Halo! This is fantastic. It’s like a fairy tale Christmas in this town. It’s so fun to drive down the snow-covered roads and look at all the evergreen trees coated in snow and see the beautiful log cabins with big snowflakes falling all around them. Of course, I am working when I do this! We have been busy getting homes ready for guests that are visiting over the holidays or homeowners that haven’t been to their cabins since last summer. We have also been plowing driveways and snow blowing and/or shoveling walkways to house entrances, propane tanks, and anything else that should be accessible for the maintenance of the home and the safety of the homeowner. We have had about 5 or 6 inches fall today, but reports are predicting much more snow over the next 24 to 48 hours, possibly for a total of 20-plus inches when the storm ends. Merry Christmas Eve!

Dead bees cover the cabin floor

So, it’s winter now, and if you’ve had bees nesting in the walls or foundation at your cottage over the summer, they’re dying now and making a graveyard of your beautiful seasonal home! As it gets cold out and the insects die off, their dead bodies start to pile up on your floors. This can be quite unsightly! How would you like to pack up your family and friends for a winter break at the cabin only to find it riddled with dead insects??!! We can’t tell you how many houses we have found dead bees and wasps in this year. There was no way for anyone to know the little guys had made a nest in the walls until now. I’ve included a picture of one of the homes we checked on our route today. We’ll clean these up for the customer and arrange for pest control service with one of our trusted vendors this coming spring so this doesn’t happen again.

Home Halo Advertisement

This ad says it all. I’ll be honest. When I first started working here, I wondered why people would pay us to watch their homes while they were gone. However, after seeing firsthand what can go wrong, I sure understand why now! It’s only two weeks into our busy season, and already we have seen a furnace break down, a major rodent infestation, and an electrical problem! It’s really shocking that so many things can go wrong with an empty house. You’d certainly expect it with a pet left alone, but who would guess all the trouble a house can get in when it’s alone. I guess houses can misbehave too.

People tend to love their homes, especially cabins, as much as they love their pets. So, of course, the homes shouldn’t be left all alone. Besides the emotional impact of problems with a house, there is also the price of repairs. The amount we charge to watch over and care for the home is very small compared to costly damage from problems that are left too long. Sure, most homes are insured, but if you’ve made any insurance claims lately, you probably know insurance is almost never there for you when you need it! 

If you’re leaving your home for the season, I really suggest you try to find a professional and reliable service like ours that can watch over your home, which is probably one of your most valuable investments.

Seasonal Home

The majority of our seasonal customers have headed for warmer weather, so this week we’ve been busy starting up our seasonal home watch packages this week. We got several new customers this year, so we’ve been busy. Usually when people leave their homes for the season, they have a checklist of things that need to be completed before their departure. We know that not every homeowner has a list, so we put a handy list on our site. You can access it by clicking here.

If this is your first time heading south for the winter, be sure to check your homewoners’ insurance policy for any vacancy clauses. This is extremely important for the snowbird “newbies.” If you have further questions or aren’t sure whether or not there is a clause after looking through your policy, contact your insurance agent. Often times, insurance companies refuse to cover incidents if your primary residence has been unoccupied for 30 days or more.

Cleaning roofs and gutters

Today our crew cleaned several roofs and gutters on the homes we maintain. It doesn’t take long for gutters to become clogged with leaves, pine needles, and other debris. Keeping roofs clear of debris can prolong the life of shingles and keep water flowing correctly. If water can’t flow through the gutters, it can back up and start seeping into home’s foundation. It’s equally important to keep roofs clean as well. A roof cluttered with leaves and other debris can collect in the valleys of the roof and cause moisture to accumulate. As a result of all the moisture, the shingles can begin to rot. Not only that, but if seeds from trees fall and get lodged in the valleys, trees can begin to grow. Our crew has seen this many times when acorns get lodged in roofs. There are tons of acorns here in Minnesota this year, so we’ve been busy!


The leaves have already reached their peak colors here in Crosslake, so we’ve started arranging for yard clean-ups at our customers’ houses this week. It’s important to clear yards of leaves and other debris to maintain a healthy lawn. This is not a fun or fast task, so most of our customers choose to hire this work out rather than do it themselves. Commercial groundskeeping companies that have powerful high-quality lawn equipment, like the Little Wonder blower shown in this video, can get the job done much faster than the average person who would use a residential-quality blower (or the ancient rake and tarp).

Irrigation specialist, Derrick Sievert, winterizing a lake pump

It’s fall in Minnesota, and soon winter will arrive freezing anything and everything in its path. That includes irrigation systems. We’ve been working to get all our customers’ irrigation systems winterized because temperatures are dropping, and the weather man says snow will be coming soon! It’s important to make sure there is no water in the lines of a sprinkler system when temperatures drop to freezing. We always call upon the help of irrigation professionals to winterize our customers’ systems to make sure the job is done right. Derrick at Sievert Irrigation, LLC was kind enough to pose for this photo in his fabulous green rain gear!