Connections! in SW Florida - Featuring Vicky Cardone with Naples Home Watch

Good Tuesday morning from Southwest Florida. My name is Renee Hahn and I am coming to you from Naples proper, but I've been hosting these Connections in Southwest Florida showcases, business showcases, as a way for me to try to help local businesses connect with local people. And as I've said on every segment, you know, when COVID hit all of us entrepreneurs, all of a sudden the normal way that we might have been connecting with customers— excuse me— in some cases came to a complete halt. So when I looked at some of the platforms that my business allows me to have, you know, as I think about growing my business, I thought these could be very shareable with others and came up with the idea that I wanted to use my software that I've purchased to showcase some of the other businesses. So I am thrilled this Tuesday morning to have Vicki with GoNipples Home Watch. And Vicki, before we get into the business side, why don't you tell our audience a little bit about yourself?

Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me here. This is a great, um, way for, for people here in Naples to connect with each other. And, and I think what you're doing is a wonderful job. I, I think it's amazing. So thank you for having me. Um, a little bit about myself. Um, I grew up in Colombia, um, and I came to United States in 2000, right before 9/11 happened. And, um, I moved to New York after 9/11, and it was quite shocking for me and never seen anything like that in terms of how everything is so big and so glamorous and crazy New York. And I started working in the hospitality industry and somehow I just fell into it and I really loved it. I went from bus girl all the way to managing bars and restaurants in New York City. I worked all the positions, bus girl, waitress, waiter, sorry, waitress, bartender, and then manager. And it was It was a nice piece. And then in 2009, I said, I'm done. I want to go and see the world. I want to do something different. So I joined Royal Caribbean on a cruise ship and I went to work for a cruise ship where I was the bar supervisor of 28 bars on board. So it was quite the experience because I had, I was in charge of all those 28 bars plus all the staff. And I do, I did have supervisors above me, but pretty much the job of watching all those bars was on me. So it was very intense experience, but I got to meet my husband there. So after we finished working at the cruise ship, I said, I'm done with this. I do one contract and that's it. So we went, I went back to New York. I said, I have to leave. I'm going back to New York and he followed me. And while we were there, he, he's a chef. So he was able to work for several Michelin-star restaurants there and made his career, part of his career there. And about 2011 or '12, well, in 2011, we got married and he's from Germany. So we flew back to Germany there to have the wedding. And when we came back, he said, I don't want to live in New York City anymore because it is somehow a dirty city for him coming from Germany where everything is so clean and spotless. So we moved out of the city, still working in the city, and we had a daughter who's now 4 years old. And 13 weeks ago we had a boy. But in 2018, we moved to Naples looking for warmer weather because when we had our daughter, it was overwhelming how cold it was. She was born in October. So all that winter, I couldn't leave the home. I mean, I could have, but I really didn't feel like taking a little baby outside all the time. So I said, no, I don't want to do this again. I want to be able to enjoy all year round being in parks, being outdoors. So we found Naples and we moved here in 2018. And since then we just, we love it here and we making ourselves a little, um, you know, life in here, only being 2 years, but it feels like we've been here for a very long time.

Well, I love your pathway and we have some things in common when I, started my university pursuits, I actually was on a full scholarship for hospitality management at Michigan State. Oh, so I came out of that and I have a fine appreciation for how taxing that can be because you work when nobody else is working. So holidays, forget it, right? You're late nights, you're always the last to leave.

Totally get it. I know, but what I love Colombia, in Colombia we don't celebrate, for instance, Thanksgiving. So I had to work every single Thanksgiving because people were like, oh, Oh, you don't care, you know. I said, well, I want to integrate it into my traditions now since I'm here. No, no, no, no. I had to work every single Thanksgiving.

Yep, I remember that now. When I waited tables, not when I was in management, when I waited tables, people gave me really good tips because they felt bad about that. But the point is, I appreciate that it can be a grueling career to have, and ultimately I had switched out of that too. So, well, Vicki, what I love though is you took that hospitality background, and you rounded it out in a couple of different ways. And I think that's the perfect training ground for what you do now, because what you— you know, you've always been focused on how you take care of others. Um, so what a great way to bring that to a new, uh, career for yourself. Let's talk a little bit about Go Naples Home Watch and the vision for, you know, what— how you started that, and tell us a little bit about your services, if you don't mind.

So what inspired us was when I moved here, well, when we moved here to Naples, we purchased our new home, a home that, you know, we never owned a home before in New York. You know, it's, it's mostly it's renting. So we never owned a home. And when we moved to our new home, we had already planned a trip to Germany for 2 weeks. And I said to my husband, what are we going to do with the house? I don't want to even move in because What if something goes wrong? And, you know, what are we going to do with, you know, it's our new home, we just spent, you know, all our savings in it. I want to make sure that it's going to be safe. So let's not move in until we come back to make sure that everything is okay. Because back then, I didn't know anything about HomeWatch. So we, we purchased the home, we went to, to Germany for 2 weeks, we came back, we moved in. And then I said, you know what, What do people do when they have to leave their homes? And I kind of started researching about it and I came across your Professional Home Watch training program with Diane Pisani, which is amazing.

She's phenomenal.

Amazing, yes. And, you know, I kind of integrated what I've learned, like you said, in the hospitality industry, you know, because I love, I enjoy very much serving people, being there for them, you know, and I feel like that was the perfect way to integrate it without having to go back into the restaurant life. And also because, you know, I have a daughter now and I have a little boy— well, not at the time— but, um, it's perfect because it allows me to work on my own schedule and do the things that I, that I like, being with my kids while still serving others. So, um, how we do it is we basically You probably know as a realtor how important it is for people to understand the importance of Home Watch and how, you know, when we, when we were in New York renting an apartment one day, we were just walking around, I was playing with my daughter, and then I hear this gushing sound and I was like, what is this? It almost sounds like when you turn on the washing machine and all this water comes in. And I was like, I didn't turn on the washing machine. So I asked my husband, he's like, no. And I went to see And I see water everywhere. I was like, what is happening? So I called him and he's like, where's this coming from? So one of the pipes in the bathroom just burst out of nowhere. Thank God we were in the apartment. We started immediately running, calling people, lifting everything off the floor so it wouldn't damage our furniture or box that we had on the floor. And the plumbers came and they're like, we've never seen anything like this before. It burst so much. The water was coming off the outlets in the bathroom.

Wow. Yeah, that's big. That's something you usually want to see, right?

Oh, in half an hour. Separate. Yeah, in half an hour. We lived in the, in the 5th floor. In half an hour to an hour, the water was dripping all the way in the lobby.

Oh, because it was coming from multiple apartments.

Yeah. No, it was coming just from our apartment on the wall inside. The walls, the pipe burst, but it was right there by the— by where it passed in our apartment. It wasn't like a pipe, it was an, um, inside pipe, but it was— it just burst right there and it started gushing the apartment, and all the entire floor was completely covered in water in half an hour. And one hour after, it was all the way to the lobby. So that was, uh, one of the things that I was like, you know, what if something like this happens when all these people leave their homes here in Naples. And then I got to realize how many seasonal homeowners we have. So when I came across Diane Pisani, I was like, oh my God, you know, who would have thought, you know, this is already an industry here. And, you know, the more I do it, the more I get to learn that there's so many other things that could happen. Your AC— our AC in our brand new home have stopped working 3 times already. You know, for no reason, you call the guy, he's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, fix it. What happened? Oh, I don't know. You know, I just—

Yeah, that can, as you know, that can be one of the leading causes of, you know, people always ask on the real estate side, well, what about floods from the outside? I said, look, people have much more water damage from the inside of their homes.

Yeah, that's correct.

Yeah. So you kind of came into this business, Vicki, by realizing the necessity from your own experiences finding out that there is such a profession called home watch services, meeting Diane and starting to build your own business. Talk to me a little bit about if somebody, you know, had those same concerns about— they're so excited, they just bought their slice of paradise. In fact, I had a closing this morning already, and it's a seasonal couple that has a condo on a golf course. If somebody was interested in having HomeWatch services, tell us first, what things do you do as a part of that relationship and the HomeWatch services?

Sure, so we connect with a lot of realtors because, you know, they are the front of the people buying homes. So we connect with them and we connect with other service companies like plumbers and electricians, but because those people, I feel like they are the first ones that the seasonal homeowner will ask, what do I do with my home now? I'm gonna leave, or, you know, I'm not gonna be here full time. What do I do? So you guys are the ones that put out the word for us in a way that says, you know, you need to have a HomeWatch person. Now, there's a lot of HomeWatch people— HomeWatch, I should say— they are not trained. And it's very, very important to have a trained professional. The reason being is because a lot of homeowners insurance won't pay, won't pay a claim unless there's a proper document of the visits of the home. So what we do is that when we meet a client, we go in person. We like, you know, we like personal relationships. We feel like everybody that is our client is part of this Go Naples Home Watch family, and we like meeting them in person, and we go over every detail detail we, we take care of them in their homes. And we also walk around the house with them to make sure the house is in good condition and that we have a baseline of what is happening. For instance, we have a client who, right before he took our services, had a really, really bad mold growth problem in his home. So his home was completely covered in mold. So when, when I went to see his home, of course, was all gutted, and, and there was no floor. Some walls were missing, and things were covered in plastic. So I just want to make sure that what, what am I gonna do from here and on? So we take that baseline, we visit the client's home, we, we looked at the home together, and after that we put them in our system. So we have a system that is GPS-enabled, and that way people have peace of mind knowing that we were really there, because this software cannot— or this list that the software gives us, it's customized to each home, but it won't open unless we are in the property. So it's, it's very, um, I think it gives people safe, you know, peace of mind knowing that they will— their homes are actually being being detailed.

So, well, and Vicki, I want to, I want to inject there just real quick because I don't want that to be missed and undervalued. I can tell you, because of the nature of what I do in real estate, and I keep my relationships going long after closing, I obviously get to hear about people's experiences, right? So they've closed, they're excited, they head back to Michigan or Pennsylvania or Indianapolis or, you know, wherever they're going. And I do hear things like, you know, I hired this pool company and they told me they were coming every week, and then they didn't realize I had a video camera and they hadn't been there for 4 weeks. You know, those kind of stories. So there is a level of trust, um, that needs to go into these relationships, and I think that's a phenomenal advantage, Vicki, with you guys having that as an automated assurance for customers. Because when you're paying for a service, you want to make sure that service is happening. So I, I just wanted to inject because that is really important and one of the areas that I hear about from my past clients, um, where they've had frustrations with their service providers. So, so thank you. I'm sorry.

No, no, no, please. No, thank you for putting that there. It is very important. And also because, like you said, they hire a company and they're not doing their job, we are there for them. So they can just go home and relax and forget, not forget that they have a home here, but kind of not worry about it. Because if the pool company is not coming, we will notice the pool company is not coming. We don't have to even know, have a camera knowing if they were there or not. We can tell by the color of the pool, by the water level, by all these things, the tile. Sometimes when it's bug season, whether you have a lanai or not, you know, it gets all crusted with bugs if they're not coming. So we can tell all these little things, you know, we can tell if the pest control company is not coming because all of a sudden you have more bugs than ever. So, you know, these little things that if you're not there, you can't really tell if it's if it's been serviced or not. So by having us, we take care of all that. And I think it's also very important to mention that, you know, a lot of times people think that we might be a little too expensive, but when you're saving your— there's a lot of people hiring their neighbor or a friend of a friend, you know, they just come in, they pop their head, they're like, oh yeah, everything is okay, and then they leave. And they charge them maybe $10. But then when there is a claim, when something happens, there's no reporting, there's no pictures, there's no nothing, and the insurance companies do not pay those claims. And so HomeWatch for some people might be considered a little expensive, but it's so, so important, especially in Florida where the humidity levels are so high in the summer. And nobody knows that because all the seasonal homeowners that come here, they come during the wintertime, November through, let's say, April, May sometimes. They don't experience how hot can it be here in Florida in July and August. So if your AC stops working, if your water pipes or something like that can happen, it could be so detrimental to your home. And you want to make sure that if something like that happens, you know, your home insurance will kick in.

And Vicki, do you, you know, if I share anything that's not in line with how you guys work, please correct me. But as I understand it, not only do you do checks during the time they're away, there's usually sort of a closing up at the end of the season probably that you go through when they first leave, whether it's to turn water off or different things. And then there's a monitoring. And then I imagine there's also a getting the home ready for their return. Are those, is that fair that you offer those three sort of pieces.

Yeah, absolutely. So that's part of our home watch services. 24 to 48 hours after our clients leave their home, we go and check the home because we want to make sure that everything is turned off— the ice maker, the water heater, the main water valve, all these things that sometimes homeowners, you know, they, of course, they want to have their home safe, but they forget they have too many things. Oh, we got to pack this, we got to, you know, make sure that we're driving this way. And so they forget, and we want to make sure that all the candles are blown off. And so little things like that. So 24 to 48 hours after our clients leave, we go make sure all the windows are closed. You have no idea how many windows are left open. Even doors are left open, unlocked. People forget. They think that it was locked. She thinks he did it, he did, he thinks she did it, and then they leave through the garage and the door is left wide open, um, or unlocked, I should say. But, um, yeah, so many times things like that happen. You don't want that. And you want to make sure that also people, um, during, uh, like between after they leave and before they come back, there's no packages outside, there's no magazines or newspapers in the front door, because that shows when they pile up, it shows that nobody's home. And you don't want people to know that, because, you know, especially in communities like the one we live, which is still half built, there's too many construction people. And for quite some time, about when we first moved in, there were a lot of theft in here, because I think it was that people were— there was so much construction that they knew these homes were half empty. So I think it's important. And then when people come back, we don't necessarily open their homes for them, but we do have a protocol where we leave all the vanity doors open and all the closet doors open just in case there is some water intrusion, it could dry up faster and quicker. So what we do before they arrive is we close all those doors. We also put a toilet brush across the toilet to make sure that, you know, every time we go, because we circulate the water. So maybe I should go through the process of what we do, but We circulate the water every single time we go in people's homes. And so we have the toilet brush there. So we take that off and we make sure that the AC is working because who wants to come to Florida and have no AC? So all these little things we do to, to open, let's say, the home for the client. The only, or the one thing we don't do is turn on the water, but everything else we do for them. And Yeah, we, we have an extensive list of things that we go through when we do this checkups. Now, this checkups or visits, as we call it, the frequency depends on many things. Could depend on the homeowner's insurance sometimes, and I feel like lately more homeowners insurance are catching up on this, and they determine how frequent they want someone there. And what I found is they now determine every 13 days or every— yes. So we offer our services weekly and tri-monthly, meaning 3 times a month, or on a weekly basis to cover ourselves and to cover our clients as well. Some homeowners insurance don't have any clauses for that, no frequency. So for them, we offer biweekly visits. So twice a month. But when we enter people's home and when we first arrive, first we open our list and we check the ceiling or the— sorry, not the ceiling, the roof, and make sure there's no missing tiles or anything like that or something that we can see from the bottom. And then we walk around the home making sure that there's no ant's nest or bee's nest or anything like that that we can call somebody to get it fixed, and dead plants, brown spots, stuff like that. So we walk all over around the home and then we enter the home. If there's an alarm, we disarm the alarm and we— oh, sorry, when we are outside, we turn on the water. And when we are inside, we circulate the water in every single bathroom and every single kitchen, anywhere where there's a water outlet. We turn on the washer, the dryer, the dishwasher to circulate the water, because in here if you don't circulate the water, it kind of has this sulfate smell. So you don't want people to come home to this strong sulfate smell. And we brush the toilets to make sure that there's no lime around the toilet. And we also check all the baseboards, the ceilings, the walls, make sure that there's no water intrusion. And we have different tools that we use to check for humidity levels and for the AC to make sure that the AC is running properly and all the vents have ventilation coming through them. Yeah, and then we check if they have a pool, we check the pool, make sure that, you know, like you said, the pool people are doing their job, the water level is where it should be. And we checked every single bed— bedroom, I'm sorry, behind the beds, behind things. We go around and make sure that there's no issues. All the windows, around the windows, usually that's where, you know, if you have a small crack or something not properly sealed on your window, and especially in the summertime where there's rainy season, there could be so much water intrusion. So we do all that. And then before we leave, we turn off the water again. All these things. We exercise the garage doors. We, if people have a car here, we also offer driving their cars so when they come back, the battery is still running. And we also offer tons of concierge services from picking up your laundry to cook meals in their home when they're here. Most of the concierge services are done when people are here, but we do tons of others when when people are not here because they have a painting company coming in to paint when they're not here. So we are there for them, open the door, you know, all these kind of key-in services. And when they're here, you know, like I said, we cook meals. My husband is a chef, so he goes into people's homes and he cooks for, you know, a nice evening for two or for a whole party if they want to have guests.

And then I'm there. Nice. Yes. To be married to, for the HomeWatch company to be married to a good chef.

Oh yes.

Differentiator. I love it.

Yeah. You know what they say, that women get into people, into men's heart through their stomach. But I think in this case was the opposite.

I love it. Vicky, what is, you know, when you look across where you guys have really helped owners, homeowners to date. What's sort of the biggest one that you've found that, gosh, if this person hadn't had a Home Watch, you know, how detrimental it might have been? Is there a story that stands out while keeping the innocent anonymous?

Of course, of course. So it was a client in another community and he had just finished, purchase— we do our services in packages, so you can purchase visits ahead of time. And so you have purchased, I don't know, let's say 6. I can't remember how many right now, but 6, because the time when he was going to come back kind of fall into like that week without having a HomeWatch person. Somehow he delayed his trip for, I think, 3 more days or 5 more days. Anyway, it was going to be way too much time in between my last visit and his his arrival. So I said, I don't feel comfortable leaving your home. And he was fighting me. No, no. I said, listen, if you don't want me back in your home, I, you know, by all means, say so. But I need it in writing. Because if something goes wrong, I don't want you to feel like it was me. Because on my last report, it's going to show you everything that was in your home, and how everything was perfect. But if I don't go back, it's too much time. Anyway, I, I explained all the situations, all the possible situations that could happen, and he agreed on having me one more last time before he arrived. And when I arrived, I checked everything, everything was fine, but there was— I saw like something shining at the bottom of his second pan on the HVAC system. So I don't know if you know that, you know, HVACs have a second pan where the water drips if there's any water baggage. But it wasn't in the second pan, it was underneath it. And I said, what is that? And because it was shiny, I almost thought it was like silicone underneath, you know. And so I went to touch it and it was water. I said, where's this water coming from? So I turn off the AC, I see if there was any water coming. No. So then, thank God I have Diane Pisani. So I called Diane and I said, I found this, what, what could it be? She's like, that's so weird, you know, but do not leave the home until you figure it out. So I called the homeowner, couldn't get in touch with him, call his wife. She said, well, I don't know what to tell you. I said, okay, am I allowed to, to call somebody to come and check it? So between that, I had already called their AC provider because the home was under warranty still. And they, they were finally able to get someone that afternoon. So I left, but I came back that afternoon. And when I came back, the HVAC company told me, oh my God, they are so lucky that you were here and saw this little tiny bit of water. Because when they installed the AC in the back, there is a tube that goes to the walls, and that tube was not properly sealed. So it was dripping in the back, but it had come all the way to the front now.. And he was like, if they would have left this another week, one week, all this would have been not flooded, but like, a lot of good amount of water enough to damage the walls and the baseboards around it. And he told the owner, you are very lucky to have a Home Watch person. He was so thankful. To this day, he's like, Vicky, I'm so glad you convinced me to have you one more time before I arrived.

Oh, I love it. That's a great story.

Yeah, so it wouldn't be a huge damage, but you know, it was a brand new home. They bought it and they gave it to me, you know.

Absolutely. Well, good for you for being persistent. Well, Vicki, let me take a pause because I know we're about to round out the half an hour, and I want to give people a flavor of some of the businesses that I'm going to be featuring over the next several days. Um, this week we've got Mallory from Boring to Bombshell Nail. We've got Joanne and John that are going to be coming and talking about Potty Express, and I always have to say it's paws in your paw, not the potty that you use. I don't want my poor enunciation to affect their business. Tiffany from Clear the Clutter, and we've got Pest Control Around the Corner with Walter Salazar, and Make Sense Tile and Grout Cleaning. So I'm excited to have a great lineup of businesses. If you are an entrepreneur or business owner, or you know someone that is that you think would benefit from one of these, um, business spotlights, please have them reach out to Renee at yournaplesexpert.com, and I'm happy to schedule one. I'll do these for as long as there's a need. It does not cost anybody anything. It's just the investment of your time and my time coming together. So Vicki, I want to give you the last opportunity to just— anything you'd like to say in parting to our viewers today.

Yeah, I want to say thank you so much for having me. And oh, one more thing I want to highlight about our services that between my husband and I, we speak 3 languages. So he speaks German, I speak Spanish, and between the 2 of us, obviously we speak English. So it's a huge help to our clients, the international ones and the ones that have to deal with some of the vendors here that do not speak English. And then, you know, it's a good thing for them. And you Anyone can reach us out anytime through our social media, our website, gonaplesfromwatch.com, our phone number, email. Yeah, anything like that.

Well, Vicki, it's been a pleasure to get to meet you. We are absolutely thrilled to have entrepreneurs like yourself and your husband having joined us in beautiful Southwest Florida in the last couple years. I wish you continued success as you continue to grow your home watch business. You know, this is actually, as, as much as we talk about COVID you know, the other part of this is this is a great example of there were several people that couldn't get here when they thought they were, would they be able to.

Well, you have to leave early.

Exactly, or had to leave early. So this is where a home watch service really could benefit people because you always have to plan for the unplanned, right?

That is correct.

You hope that— it's a little bit like insurance, right? We, we all will sit here for years paying insurance and thinking, gosh, I didn't need it, but the day you need it, you need it. So sharing your, your Go Naples Home Watch service, and I appreciate the opportunity to have gotten to learn more about you and your business. And everyone have a fantastic rest of the week. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

Alright, thank you.