Closing your holiday home for winter on the Basque coast

By the end of October, the coast looks different. The car parks at the Chambre d'Amour empty out, shutters close one after another in Guéthary, and fully loaded cars head back up the A63 towards Bordeaux, Paris or Lyon. Behind them, houses and flats that will not reopen until spring. Six months without heating or fresh air, facing the Atlantic, is a long time. Salty air creeps under the doors, the wind rattles the window frames, and damp gets to work quietly: linen that smells musty, mattresses with mildew spots, books that warp. And a garage full of bikes and surfboards, on a street where nobody walks by anymore, eventually catches someone's eye. Pack it all into the car boot? Rarely possible. Leave everything where it is? You know how that ends in April. Here is how to close up a holiday home in the Basque Country and find it just as you left it.

Before closing the shutters, walk through the house

No boxes just yet. Grab a notebook, or your phone, and go through the house room by room. You are trying to answer a single question: what will get through the winter here unharmed, and what is likely to suffer?

• Fabrics and paper: duvets, bed and bath linen, cushions, heavy curtains, books, photo albums, sheet music. In a closed-up house by the sea, these are the first things to soak up moisture.
• Anything easy to resell: bikes (especially e-bikes), surfboards, a paddle board, a speaker, a small TV, paintings. All things you would rather not picture sitting alone in a garage for six months.
• What stays: the sofa, the main beds, the fitted kitchen. There is no question of moving the whole house out; these get protected where they are.
• The meters: find the main water valve, the gas supply and the fuse box, and note what needs to stay on (alarm, dehumidifier).
• The outside: a banging shutter, a blocked gutter, a tired window seal. In the middle of winter, one westerly gale is enough to turn a small defect into real damage.

While you are at it, take a look at your home insurance policy. Some cover changes when a property stays empty for a long stretch, and it is better to find out now than when you come back.

Cellar, garage or storage unit: where should everything go?

The list is done; now everything that should not stay needs a home. The cellar? In the Basque Country, it is often the dampest room in the house. The garage? That is exactly what gets targeted when a house is empty. So many owners who do not live here year-round rent a self-storage unit nearby, like an extra room for the off-season.

• A dry space, away from the sea spray: the unit is clean and ventilated. Spare linen and cushions come out in spring without that cellar smell everyone dreads.
• A monitored building: 24/7 CCTV, fire alarm, electronic locks and a personal access code. The unit is private; you share it with no one.
• Anglet, all on the ground floor: at our Anglet storage facility, everything happens at ground level. You park, open the boot, grab one of the trolleys available on site, and the boards go in with no stairs and no goods lift. The ceiling height is 2.5 m: a long paddle board is better laid flat than stood upright.
• Opening hours that suit your departure: access to the units is open from 6am to 10pm, every day, Sundays included. The last trip can be made on the morning you hit the road.
• A contract that follows the seasons: no commitment, a renewable monthly contract and 15 days' notice. Keep the unit from October to April, then hand it back, or hold on to it for the summer decor.

A few things to know before loading the car. If you book online, with no bank card needed, do it a little in advance: access can take up to 15 days, the length of the cooling-off period. From the second month onwards, rent is paid by direct debit, so you don't have to think about it from Lyon or Paris. Insurance for stored belongings is compulsory: your home insurance may already cover them; if not, the team can arrange it for you. Finally, water sports gear is welcome, but the outboard's fuel can and the boat cleaning products stay at home, since anything chemical or hazardous is not allowed in the units.

The last weekend: empty first, switch off second

The order matters. If the water is turned off before the last load of washing, it is too late.

• Dry, really dry: a sheet washed the day before and folded while still slightly warm means a guaranteed stain six months later. For fabrics, choose breathable covers rather than sealed plastic bags.
• Rinse the water sports gear in fresh water: wetsuits, leashes, paddles and boards get rinsed and dried in the shade before going to the unit. Leftover salt weakens seams and eats into metal.
• In the house, cover and air: cotton sheets over the sofas, mattresses stood on edge, wardrobe doors left ajar, a few moisture absorbers in the sea-facing rooms.
• The kitchen cupboards: leftover groceries go with you or get given away. Food has no place in the unit, and perishables are not allowed there anyway. Fridge emptied, unplugged, door left open.
• Switching off, in order: water off at the main valve, pipes drained if the house is at risk of frost, gas off, breakers for unused circuits switched down. The alarm, however, stays on.
• A key left with someone: a neighbour or an agency who drops by to air the place once a month, and especially after a storm, can save you a lot of unpleasant surprises.

One last habit before closing the unit: a box marked "open first" (sheets, towels, curtains) placed near the door, and a photo of the whole lot on your phone.

In April, the same routine in reverse

You arrive, throw everything wide open and let the house breathe for a day. Water and power come back on, the dust sheets go in the washing machine. The next day, a trip to the storage unit: the box on top first, the rest in the order of your labels. In one morning, the house is back to its summer self, and nobody has had to open a cellar that smells of mould.

Claire and Marc: a house in Bidart and a storage unit for the winter

Claire and Marc live in Lyon and own a small house in Bidart, a few minutes' walk from Uhabia beach. In the early years, they left everything in place: every spring, the duvets and cushions smelled musty, and one winter the garage was broken into. Now, on the last Saturday of October, the bikes, the paddle board, the household linen and two paintings go into their storage unit in Anglet. In April, one round trip is enough to bring it all back before the first Easter guests arrive.

You might also like

• Storing your belongings near Bidart when you own a home there
• Estimate the volume of what will spend the winter in storage

• Walk through the house before closing it: what damp can ruin, what attracts attention, what stays in place.
• Linen and fabrics perfectly dry, breathable covers, water sports gear rinsed in fresh water.
• A dry, monitored ground-floor storage unit in Anglet replaces the damp cellar or the exposed garage.
• Monthly contract with no commitment and 15 days' notice: the unit follows the season, not the other way round.
• Book online a little in advance: access can take up to 15 days.
• Turn off water, gas and electricity in the right order, and leave a key with someone nearby.

Closing up the house soon? Book your storage unit online, no bank card needed, ideally two weeks before you leave. Not sure about the size? Call our local team and we'll look at what you need to store together.