House on Hold
Home Watch Service — 24/7 monitoring — real-time alerts
Half the cost of traditional home watch.
Lucy checks your empty house every minute — water, power, temperature — and tells you in plain English the moment something’s wrong.
It starts as low as $49 a month — and for $79, the system keeps watching with everything in the house shut off.
The honest math
Us vs. them
We ran a traditional home watch operation ourselves — hundreds of houses across three routes. My own route was 80 homes, a visit every two weeks. In 2012, the cheapest plan we sold was $80 a month, for a condo. The market hasn’t gotten cheaper since. Here is what the money buys.
| Compare | House on Hold | Traditional home watch |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Starts as low as $49/mo if your home internet stays on year-round — posted right here. $79/mo self-contained, and it keeps working with everything in the house shut off. | $90–$180/mo for a standard twice-a-month plan in 2026 (about $45–$55 a visit). Premium plans run $200–$500/mo. In Naples, most accredited outfits won’t post a price at all — you get a number after an in-home consultation. |
| How often your house is checked | Every minute — about 43,200 checks a month | Twice a month — one visit every 14 days |
| A leak starts. When is it found? | Within minutes | At the next visit — up to 14 days later |
| What that leak costs you | ≈ $500 — a plumber’s service call | ≈ $25,000 — after 12 days running: drywall torn out to 30 inches, full remediation, about two months of disruption |
| The power goes out | Lucy flags it at 90 seconds. The loud alarm fires at the time you set — real time to 2.5 hours. She recommends 5 minutes. | Found at the next scheduled visit — or when a neighbor happens to notice |
| How you hear about a problem | From Lucy, in the app, in plain English — and a text if you don’t read it | A visit report, after the visit |
| Needs your home WiFi | No — the hub brings its own connection | — |
| A human being on site | Not in Basic — the alerts are yours to act on. Fair’s fair: you’re buying early warning, not a person. | Yes — that is the service. A person walks through, flushes the toilets, brings in the mail |
One leak caught in the first hour instead of day twelve saves about $24,500. At $49 a month, that’s 41 years of House on Hold — paid for by a single bad Tuesday that never got bad. At the $79 self-contained rate, it’s 25.
Traditional pricing per 2026 market guides: roughly $45–$55 per visit on twice-a-month plans, $40–$45 per visit weekly; premium plans $120–$250 per visit. The $80 figure is the cheapest plan we sold ourselves, in 2012, and the leak figures are from a real 12-day leak on a real route. No cherry-picking — we didn’t have to.
How it works
Four steps. Then your house is never really empty.
1
You meet Lucy
One ten-minute call — no forms. Lucy learns your house: how it connects, where the water lives, who to call. And she asks the two questions that run everything: how long can the power be out before she raises the alarm, and should she send an inspector on her own or ask you first? Your answers become the rulebook.
2
The kit goes in
Sensors placed where houses actually get hurt: the laundry room, the water heater, under sinks, and the living space for temperature and humidity. Setup includes up to three sensors — most houses are covered right there — and Lucy runs her first full check before the visit ends, so you know it’s awake.
3
Lucy watches, every minute
Water, power, temperature, humidity — checked every 60 seconds, day and night, whether you’re in Ohio or at the grocery store. Most days you’ll hear one thing: “All quiet.” That message is the product working.
4
Something happens — you know in minutes
A sensor trips and Lucy tells you in plain English, then works the plan you set: power flickers and comes back, she stands down and it costs you nothing. A real problem, she escalates at your alarm time — and if you’ve approved it and you’re in our Lee & Collier service area, an inspector rolls. Repairs are quoted by a local pro, in his name, and you pay him directly. That money never touches us.
Pricing
The whole price, on the page.
Traditional home watch won’t post theirs — you get a quote after a man walks your house. Ours is right here. Same Lucy, same every-minute watch, same app either way. The only question is whose internet carries it.
WiFi
$49 /mo
Setup $99 · includes up to 3 sensors
For homes whose internet stays on year-round. Your connection carries the sensors; Lucy does the rest. One honest note: if your internet dies, the watch pauses — and Lucy treats losing sight of your house as an alert all by itself.
Self-contained
$79 /mo
Setup $199 · includes up to 3 sensors
The system brings its own connection and keeps watching with everything in the house shut off — internet canceled for the summer, router unplugged, doesn’t matter. This is the one built for houses that go dark.
Everything else that could ever cost money
- Extra sensors: $29 each, one time, at setup. A big house has more wet rooms than a condo — this is how its setup covers them while its monthly stays the same.
- Inspector visits: only when you say so — or pre-approved by you on your first call. $75 during the day (8 to 8), $150 after hours, in our Lee & Collier service area. If Lucy checks and it’s nothing, you’ll know exactly what the visit was and what it found, on your bill, in plain words.
- Repairs: not ours to sell you. A local pro quotes the work in his own name; you approve it; you pay him directly. House on Hold never touches repair money — no markup, no percentage, no spread.
- Alerts, stand-downs, and false alarms: free. Power flickers and comes back? Lucy tells you and stands down. That’s the job, not a billable event.
No coupon games, no inflated setup with a fake discount. The price is the price.
See it work. Then put your house on hold.
Don’t take our word for it — watch Lucy catch a leak. This is the whole product in about a minute: the sensor trips, Lucy talks, the problem stays small.
Starting as low as $49 a month if your internet stays on year-round — $79 self-contained. Half the cost of traditional home watch — and getting started is one ten-minute call with Lucy.
- Built by people who ran traditional home watch routes
- Your repair money never touches us — you pay the tradesman directly, always
- Every fee we ever charge is flat, stated up front, and on one monthly bill
House on Hold — Lucy
- 2:14 AM Laundry room water sensor: water detected
- 2:14 AM · Lucy It’s Lucy with House on Hold. Water just hit the laundry room sensor. We caught it in the first minutes — this is still the $500 kind of problem, not the $25,000 kind.
- Owner We’re in Ohio. What do we do?
- Lucy Say the word and I’ll line up a plumber. You’ll get his name, his price, and his payment link — your money goes to him directly. It never touches us.
- Owner Do it.
- 2:16 AM · Lucy Done. Ozark Plumbing, tomorrow at 9, $180 service call — his link is in your app. I’ll confirm when he’s finished and the sensor reads dry.
- Two minutes. One small bill. No torn-out drywall. Put my house on hold →
Press “Run the leak demo” and watch this phone.
Simulated demo — the alerts, the words, and the prices are the real thing. Only the house is made up.
Same Lucy when the power goes out: a quiet heads-up at 90 seconds, a stand-down when it’s back — and the loud alarm only at the time you set. You set the clock. She keeps it.
Straight answers
What is a home watch service?
Traditionally, it’s a person who visits your empty home on a schedule — usually twice a month — walks the rooms, and reports what they find. House on Hold is a 24/7 real-time home watch service: sensors in the home check it every minute and a watch agent, Lucy, alerts you the moment something’s wrong, instead of the problem waiting up to two weeks for the next visit to discover it.
How much does home watch cost?
Traditional home watch in Florida typically runs $90–$180 a month for standard plans, and $200–$500 a month for premium ones — when prices are posted at all; many established companies quote only after an in-home consultation. House on Hold starts as low as $49 a month on your home internet, or $79 a month self-contained, with a one-time setup of $99 or $199 depending on the connection. Every price is on our pricing page — no consultation required to learn what it costs.
How often is my house checked?
Every 60 seconds. A twice-monthly visit schedule means 20,160 minutes between checks; House on Hold checks about 43,200 times a month. That gap is the whole point: most home damage is cheap in its first hour and catastrophic by day twelve.
What happens if a leak starts while I’m away?
The water sensor trips and Lucy messages you within minutes, in plain English, with where it is. From there it’s your call — made on your first call, actually: she can coordinate a plumber from our local pros (you approve the quote, you pay the pro directly), or just keep you posted while you handle it your way. A leak caught in hour one is roughly a $500 plumber visit. The same leak found on day twelve is drywall torn out to 30 inches, about two months of remediation, and a bill around $25,000.
What if the power goes out?
The hub runs on its own battery, so an outage doesn’t silence it. A flicker under 90 seconds is ignored. A real outage gets a quiet heads-up — and if the power is still out at the alarm time you set (Lucy recommends 5 minutes), she raises the full alarm. If it comes back on its own, she stands down and tells you, and none of that costs you anything.
Do you send someone out, or just notify me?
Both, on your terms. Lucy always notifies you — that’s the service. Sending an inspector is your choice, set on your first call: she asks each time, or rolls automatically if you pre-approved it. Inspector visits run in our service area, Lee and Collier counties, at $75 during the day and $150 after hours. Outside the service area, Lucy escalates to the contacts you named and coordinates with you — she never promises a person she doesn’t have.
What does the system watch?
Water leaks, power loss, and indoor temperature and humidity — sensors placed where the risks live: laundry room, water heater, under sinks, and the living space. (Smoke and carbon monoxide aren’t on the list on purpose: your home already has those detectors by code. We watch the things code doesn’t.) Temperature and humidity matter more than people expect: when an AC unit dies in a Florida summer, the humidity climbs first, and mold follows it.
I shut my internet off for the summer. Can I still use this?
Yes — that’s exactly what the self-contained plan is for. At $79 a month the system brings its own connection and keeps watching with everything in the house shut off. The $49 WiFi plan is for homes whose internet stays on year-round; if yours goes dark in May, self-contained is your version.