Moving to a new city for a work assignment gives you plenty to think about, and where you sleep should not be one of the harder parts. A furnished monthly home takes care of the big things before you arrive: a made bed, a kitchen you can cook in, towels in the closet, a table to work at. What is left is smaller and manageable. This is a first-week checklist for a furnished stay in a new city, built to get you comfortable quickly so you can put your attention on the reason you came.
Nobody settles in all at once, so give yourself the week. Here is a sensible order to work through, roughly from the day you drop your bags to the morning of your first shift.
Do a quick walk-through the day you arrive
Before you unpack, walk each room once. You are learning the house and catching anything that needs attention while it is easy to report. A few minutes now saves a frustrating call later.
- Find the thermostat and set it somewhere comfortable.
- Locate the breaker box and the main water shutoff, just so you know where they are.
- Check how the washer and dryer work, and where extra linens and towels are kept.
- Look for a welcome note or house guide; furnished homes often leave one with the details you will want first.
- Note trash and recycling day and where the bins go.
- Write down anything that looks off and send it to your host early, with a photo if it helps.
Get online
For most people, this is the first real task. Many furnished monthly homes come with internet already set up, so start by checking whether it is included. If it is, find the network name and password, which are usually left on the fridge, the router, or in the welcome note. Connect your laptop and phone, then run a quick video call to confirm the signal holds where you plan to work.
If you need to arrange service yourself, ask the host which providers serve that address so you are not guessing between plans. It also helps to check your cell signal in the rooms where you will spend the most time. If a back bedroom is weak, you will want to know before your first work call, not during it.
Stock the basics
Once you are online, sort out food and the few things every kitchen seems to be missing. You do not need a full pantry in week one. Aim for enough to get through a few days without another trip.
- Find the nearest grocery store and make one run: coffee, breakfast, a couple of easy dinners, and snacks.
- Grab the household items that run out fast, like trash bags, dish soap, paper towels, and a sponge.
- Locate the closest pharmacy in case you need to fill a prescription or pick up something for a cold.
- Note where the nearest urgent care or clinic is, just to have it saved.
A short drive usually covers all of this in Orlando, and getting it done early means the rest of the week feels lighter.
Learn the commute before day one
The commute is the part most worth practicing. If you can, make the trip to work a day early, at roughly the time you will actually travel. Traffic at 6 a.m. looks nothing like traffic at noon, and knowing the real drive takes the guesswork out of your first morning.
While you are at it, check a few things: where you will park, which entrance or badge you need, and how long the walk is from the lot to your unit or floor. Keep a backup route in mind in case of a closure, and note a gas station or two near the house and near work. If you will use transit or a rideshare instead, do a test run so the pickup spot and timing are familiar.
Know who to call for a house question
Save your property contact in your phone the day you arrive, before you need it. A furnished stay is easier when you know who handles a house question, and it is worth being clear on the difference between a routine issue and a real emergency. A slow drain or a remote that needs batteries is a message you can send anytime. A water leak, no power, or anything involving safety is a call to make right away, and for true emergencies you call 911 first.
With Libema, that contact is simple: one point of contact for anything about the home, so you are not chasing down who to reach. Good hosts would rather hear from you early than have a small thing turn into a headache.
Work through this list and the house stops feeling new by the end of the week. If you are still looking for a furnished monthly home in Orlando for a work assignment, relocation, or an insurance stay, we are happy to help you check availability and talk through what you need.
Confirm the paperwork and the exact address
Somewhere in your first few days, set aside twenty minutes to read the paperwork you signed and confirm a few details while they are easy to fix. A monthly stay with us runs on a written agreement that names the home, the dates, the rate and the deposit, all confirmed in writing when you inquire. Save a copy of it somewhere you will actually find again, not buried in an email thread you might not search for later.
If your stay is being paid by an employer, a staffing agency or an insurer rather than out of your own pocket, this is also the week to confirm who receives the itemized monthly receipts and, if it applies, whether a W-9 or a certificate of insurance needs to go to their accounting department. Established companies, agencies and insurers can be billed on net-30 terms under a signed agreement or purchase order, with the first booking paid up front. None of that applies to a family, a couple or any other leisure stay, where the normal booking and deposit terms cover everything.
Confirm the exact address too. Six of our thirteen homes, including the Amelia House and the 25th Street House, publish a street address on the site. The other six, among them the Wekiwa House, list a neighborhood and zip code, with the exact address shared once your booking is confirmed. Either way, get it in writing before you update an employer's records, redirect your mail, or give it to anyone shipping you something in week one.
Where packages and deliveries actually land
None of our thirteen homes have a front desk or a shared lobby to hold a package, because each one is a private single-family house, not an apartment building. Every home has its own driveway, carport or parking pad, so most carriers leave a delivery at the front door. The Amelia House and the 25th Street House both have a covered front porch, which keeps a package out of the weather if you are not home when it arrives.
If you are ordering anything sizable for a month-long stay, an office chair, a mattress topper, a first big grocery delivery, confirm the exact address with us first if your home is one of the six that only lists a neighborhood and zip publicly. A driver working from an outdated address costs you a day you do not have to lose in week one.
What the house already has before you shop
A furnished home only saves you time if you know what is already there before you go shopping. Every one of our homes comes with the furniture, the beds and linens, a kitchen stocked with cookware and dishes, a washer and dryer, Wi-Fi, and private parking, with the exact list for your home confirmed in writing when you book.
Exact inclusions vary a little by home and are confirmed in writing when you book.
The kitchen is usually the part people over-shop for. The Katherine House, for example, comes with cookware, dishes and a coffee maker already in the cabinets, so a first grocery run can be about food instead of equipment.
Laundry is not identical at every home either. The Head Avenue House, the 25th Street House, the Cozy House and Wekiwa Home all have full-size washers and dryers; the rest still have a washer and dryer, just not the full-size kind, so it is worth checking which applies to your home before you plan a laundry day around it.
What is usually missing, and worth a short list for day one or two, are the small consumables no house is stocked with ahead of a guest: dish soap, a sponge, paper towels, and coffee or tea if you have a brand you prefer.
The grocery run for each cluster of homes
Once you know what is already stocked, the next stop is filling in the rest, and where you go depends on which cluster your home sits in. From the Parramore and Holden Heights homes on the downtown edge, the compact Publix at The Paramount on Lake Eola is the closest option, with a second Publix on South Orange Avenue near Holden Heights. From the Pine Hills, Rosemont and Lockhart homes in the northwest, Presidente Supermarket and the Caribbean Supercenter on West Colonial Drive cover a full week of cooking, Enson Market a few doors down adds a large Asian grocery to the same corner, and the Walmart Supercenter on West Princeton Street is there for a bigger stock-up. From the Washington Shores homes, the Piedmont, Dollins and Sunset Lake houses, the Walmart Supercenter on West Princeton Street and Presidente Supermarket on Pine Hills Road cover the everyday shop, with the Publix at The Paramount on Lake Eola downtown as a third option. From the Meet & Play House in Malibu Groves, a little further west, the pick is the newer Publix at Metro West Village or the Publix on South Kirkman Road. From the Hiawassee home, that same Metro West Village Publix is the everyday stop, with a second Publix and a large Walmart Supercenter further out on West Colonial toward Ocoee.
Inside of a Publix store in MetroWest, Orlando, Florida · Nielsoncaetanosalmeron · CC BY 4.0 · resized from 6000x4000
Learning this one route in the first few days, instead of defaulting to whichever store shows up first on a map search, is what makes the rest of the month feel like living somewhere rather than staying somewhere.
The home that matches how you're arriving
Every guest arrives with a different list of needs for the first week, and three of our homes make especially good starting points depending on what that list looks like.
South of DowntownFruit Tree Home
6 min downtown · 5 min ORMC · 13 min Universal
Northwest OrlandoWinterPark Home
13 min downtown · 10 min AdventHealth · 26 min Universal
West OrlandoWekiwa Home
17 min downtown · 16 min AdventHealth · 19 min Universal
If you are moving in alone and do not want to coordinate a lockbox pickup, the 25th Street House in Holden Heights has keyless entry, so you let yourself in the moment you arrive, day or night. It also has full-size laundry on site, so the clothes you traveled in can be washed the same afternoon instead of saved for a laundromat trip later in the week.
If you are bringing a family and want a slower first few days, the Katherine House in Lockhart has a screened porch and sits on a quiet residential street a short walk from a community park with a playground and courts, a place for a partner or kids to spend time outdoors while you handle the parts of settling in that only you can do.
If it is just you, or you and one other person, and you would rather not manage a bigger house in week one, the Wekiwa House in Hiawassee is the smallest home in the portfolio: two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a kitchen that is simple to keep stocked for one or two people.
The errands beyond the work commute
You already know to test the work commute a day early. It is worth doing the same for the drive you had not planned around: the bank, the hardware store, a return you need to make, or a first supply run for whatever the kitchen list turned up. Downtown Orlando, where a lot of that gets done, runs between 6 and 17 minutes from our homes depending on which one you are in.
SR-408 and I-4, the two highways that get you there fastest, are tolled by transponder or plate. If you expect to drive them daily for a month or more, a SunPass or E-PASS is worth setting up in week one instead of paying the higher plate rate all month. Orlando's rush hours run heavier on the longer routes in the chart above, so a trip that takes nine minutes at 10 a.m. can take longer at 5 p.m. Build the extra time into your plans for any appointment you cannot be late for.
Spend part of the first weekend near the house
The first free stretch of time, even if it is only a Saturday morning, is worth spending near the house before driving across the metro to see everything at once. What is close depends on your cluster.
- From the downtown-edge homes, Lake Eola Park has a roughly one-mile sidewalk loop, rentable swan boats for about $15 a half-hour Tuesday through Sunday, and a Sunday farmers market from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- From the Pine Hills cluster, Barnett Park is 159 acres with a free splash pad, playgrounds, walking trails, disc golf, and basketball and volleyball courts.
- From City and Stadium Sanctuary Vibes in Washington Shores, the drive to Camping World Stadium is about two minutes, and Lake Lorna Doone Park sits just north of the stadium, rebuilt in 2021 with a walking loop, outdoor fitness stations, a splash pad and a lakeside pavilion.
- From Wekiwa Home, Wekiwa Springs State Park is about 18 minutes north: a 72-degree spring you can swim or snorkel in, with canoe and kayak rental for roughly $17 for the first two hours and an entry fee of about $6 per carload, open 8 a.m. to sunset.
Food is worth the same short trip in week one. From the downtown-edge homes, College Park's Edgewater Drive has Foxtail Coffee for a laptop-friendly cafe and Adriatico Trattoria and Zeytin for a sit-down dinner, a few minutes north of the Amelia and 25th Street houses. From the Malibu Groves and Hiawassee homes, the restaurant row along South Hiawassee Road covers Tacos Don Andres for birria, Habibi Lebanese Grill for shawarma, and Teak Neighborhood Grill for a weekend brunch.
For a gym before you decide on a long-term membership, the Downtown Orlando YMCA on North Mills Avenue is a full-service option with pools, and the Planet Fitness, LA Fitness and EOS chains line West Colonial Drive and Silver Star Road for the northwest and west clusters.
None of this requires planning beyond checking the hours. Go once in the first week and the neighborhood stops feeling like a hotel district and starts feeling like where you live for now.
Assign rooms and routines for a shared house
If you are splitting a house with a partner, a colleague, or the rest of your family, the first week goes easier if you assign rooms around real features instead of just claiming whichever bedroom looks biggest. The Dollins House has blackout curtains in its furnished bedrooms, which matters if one of you works nights and needs to sleep during the day. The Katherine House's screened porch is a good spot for whoever wants a quiet coffee before the rest of the house is awake. The Amelia House has a bedroom with its own attached bathroom, useful for whoever keeps a different schedule from everyone else. And if someone needs to log on for work in the first few days, the Head Avenue House has a desk built into one bedroom, and the Meet & Play House has desks in two.
It is a five-minute conversation on day one, and it saves a week of stepping around each other before anyone brings it up.
Handle an extension before the calendar forces it
If your stay might run longer than planned, a project that extends or a house search that takes another few weeks, say so as early as you can, not in the last few days of the month. Extensions with us are handled by the month, at the same terms as your original agreement, and letting us know early gives the best chance the home stays open for the following month instead of going to someone else.
Some guests plan for exactly that from the start. The Meet & Play House sleeps up to nine and has desks in two bedrooms, useful if a stay runs long enough that someone is still working from the house past the original dates. Cristina, who stayed there in July 2026, wrote: 'I had everything I needed to make it a long-term stay. I was in this Airbnb for 30 days.'
"Wonderful stay! Very clean and spacious! Michelle was amazing and so pleasant to deal with! Thank you!"
"We had a great time during our stay. Everything was clean and prepared for us before we arrived. The house was also brand new and very spacious. Michelle was always checking up on us to make sure our stay was perfect. I would 100% stay here again anytime I’m in Orlando."
"Very new home with everything you could need. We came in to see a concert and this was very close to the Amphitheater. It was clean, easy in and out with clear instructions. We would stay again if we were in the area again."
The pattern in that stay is the same one this checklist is built around: the fewer surprises in week one, the more the rest of the month runs itself.
More reading for the weeks after the first
Three of our guides go further into pieces of this same stretch. Monthly Furnished Rentals: What's Usually Included breaks the included list down room by room. Getting Around Orlando for Work covers the highways, the commuter train, and how to pick housing that keeps a daily drive short. And Which Libema Home Is Right for You matches all thirteen homes to the kind of stay people actually book.
Monthly Furnished Rentals: What's Usually Included
A plain rundown of the furniture, kitchen, linens, utilities, and internet you can usually expect in a furnished monthly home, and the questions worth asking before you book.
Read →
Getting Around Orlando for Work
A plain orientation to moving around metro Orlando for a job: the main highways, the commuter train, and how to pick housing that keeps your daily drive short.
Read →Which Libema Home Is Right for You
All thirteen homes matched to the stays people actually book: a solo nurse, a couple, a family of five, a crew, a reunion, a game weekend, a hospital assignment.
Read →If you are still deciding on a home for the move itself, reach out with your dates and we will point you to two or three that fit.
