My spouse and I do the snowbird.
The 2 of us drive 16 hours down south and spend the winters in a southern shack.
It is a few weeks of no work, stress and just being together. Then both of us pack up and drive back north in the Spring. This year both of us stayed longer than ever. The 2 of us are retired and don’t honestly have anything up north anymore. The two of us left right after Christmas and stayed down south until early November! Our northern lake cabin sat that long with no one checking on it. When both of us came back I realized that the cabin was totally disfigured. Apparently over the Wintertide our furnace plan stopped working. The un-even temperatures got to be in the drawback twenties and there was no heating. The pipes in our cabin froze solid and the water in them expanded. With the expansion and then thawing of Spring, our pipes burst. Water exploded all over our study room floor and in our powder rooms. The water and busted pipes then sat for weeks. The floors are totally ruined by the water and mold growth. The piping is all rusted and rotted. My spouse and I have to pay for modern plumbing in the study room and 2 powder rooms. I need to rip up all our floors and upgrade them with new. The amount of mold in the lake cabin and the smell is just awful. It is going to be an lavish fix just because of a wonky heating system. The two of us should have had someone check our control unit, furnace or invest in smart Heating, Ventilation, and A/C technology. Instead both of us are totally screwed.