More than 1,000 people with holiday homes have signed up to a service which does everything from buying tea and milk to putting on the heat before the owner arrives for the weekend.
Wexford-based Mr John Atkinson has set up a business looking after people's holiday homes or second homes.
Irish Home Minders came into being after Mr Atkinson discovered there were about 140,000 empty holiday or second homes in the State.
As he was involved in the property management business, he was often asked by owners of holiday homes to check their houses after a storm or other event.
People frequently worried about the safety of their empty homes, he said, and they often made long journeys just to check that they had not been damaged after bad weather. Before one client signed up to the service, he was regularly driving a seven-hour round trip to his second home in Wexford to check everything was in order.
This service provides routine monthly inspection reports for owners with a 45-point check list covering issues such as meter-reading, dipping the oil tank, checking the heat, lights and smoke alarms and forwarding post.
Irish Home Minders has a list of approved associates dotted around the country who do this work. They have all undergone Garda checks and must live no further than a 20 minute drive from the house.
Clients can get discounts on their home insurance because the house is seen as being more secure than a typical holiday home. The service costs €100 to join and then €25 per brief inspection or €35 for a full inspection report.
"We can set up your holiday home before your arrive," Mr Atkinson said. "After a long drive you can be tired and fraught so having tea, coffee, milk, butter, bread in place and ready to use can provide a welcome relief."
If clients have specific requests, they can be e-mailed to the irishhomeminders.com website.
"Who would ever have thought that there would be enough money in the country for 140,000 holiday homes?" he said. "It is a sign of the times."
The demand for the service is strongest in the traditional tourist areas such as Wexford, Wicklow, Galway, Sligo, Kerry and Cork but there is also strong interest from the Cavan/Monaghan area.
