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Please help me choose the most suitable word in this context:

When I went on vacation, thieves climbed into my abandoned apartment.

Does 'abandoned' word fit well in this usage? My apartment does not contain junk and not dilapidated. Good one with all necessary properties. It just was temporarily without owners. Nobody lived there for a few days.

What're better and more suitable options?

derelict, deserted, forsaken, emptied, unoccupied, outcast, something else?

Laurel
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kapandron
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    Surely you continued to own it (or rent it) while you were on holiday? Did it still contain your furniture while you were away? What did you find when you looked up your suggested words? [Please edit the question; don't supply more information in comments] – Andrew Leach Mar 12 '18 at 15:30
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    LOL I do so wish the correct word could be "vacated"... maybe if writing hip hop lyrics... – Craig.Feied Mar 14 '18 at 14:56
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    Do you need a word there at all? "When I went on vacation, thieves climbed into my apartment" makes perfect sense on its own. Unless you supply some further detail (e.g. "...and they pointed a gun at my roommate"), the listener will likely assume nobody was in the apartment at the time. – Zach Lipton Mar 14 '18 at 18:34
  • The "owner" would call it rented. Otherwise they probably wouldn't be on vacation. – Mazura Mar 16 '18 at 21:58
  • It is unfortunate that the OP never came back to clarify whether the apartment continued to contain the OP's furniture and generally be ready for the OP's use. Several of the answers offered, including the most highly upvoted one, would normally be understood to imply that there is nothing left in the apartment; they would be misleading if the apartment is so equipped that the OP can immediately resume normal life in it upon return from the vacation. – jsw29 Jan 02 '24 at 22:46
  • My apartment in the question continued to contain the furniture and is totally ready to use. I can immediately resume normal life in it upon return from my vacation. @jsw29 Do you agree with the accepted answer? – kapandron Jan 03 '24 at 20:00
  • In that case, unattended and unguarded is certainly better than vacant, empty, unoccupied, and uninhabited. All of the words in the latter group can be taken to imply that the apartment is awaiting a new resident, rather than a return of the current resident. I assume that the reason for their receiving as many upvotes as they have is that it was not clear from the question that this is not the case. The best solution is to not use any word for this purpose; 'when I went on vacation' already conveys perfectly the relevant information about the state of the apartment. – jsw29 Jan 03 '24 at 22:35
  • I just wanted an adjective that would show there was no one at home (family members for example) – kapandron Jan 04 '24 at 01:59

8 Answers8

100

I'd use vacant.

  1. having no occupant; unoccupied: no vacant seats on this train.
  2. not in use: a vacant room.
Roger Lipscombe
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    A vacation is called such because it is a period during which a person vacates their home (leaving it vacant). – EldritchWarlord Mar 12 '18 at 18:32
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    That feels a bit en-US to me, but maybe because other Englishes often use holiday instead of vacation. – Robin Whittleton Mar 12 '18 at 18:35
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    Although I'd likely use vacant in this case, calling an apartment vacant suggests that there is no tenant/resident, not that the tenant is simply away from the apartment temporarily. – yoozer8 Mar 12 '18 at 21:03
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    @EldritchWarlord Interestingly, it seems that vacation comes from the person being vacant from their usual activities, rather than their house being vacant. As an en-UK speaker, I would say that my house was vacant while I was on holiday. – bobajob Mar 13 '18 at 11:19
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    "vacant" means that a rental/lease property is currently unrented. (rather like "vacancy" with motels/hotels). – Fattie Mar 14 '18 at 11:22
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    To me, "vacant" suggests that there are no owners. "Vacated" sounds more temporal – minseong Mar 16 '18 at 09:53
71

I would go with empty, for example

Burglars in Northern Ireland are having empty houses advertised to them by the growing trend of posting holiday snaps on social media, a police commander has warned.

As Mitch recommended, it may be even better to omit an adjective altogether.

Konstantin
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    Probably the word I'd most expect to hear in this situation. The other answers are good but a less natural choice; "unattended" is more precise but feels more formal than the rest of the sentence, and "vacant" has a sense of permanency (though not the neglect of "abandonment"). – brichins Mar 12 '18 at 18:11
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    Omitting the adjective is surely an option, but if the OP asks for one, it is not the answer. The word empty feels to me a bit like there is nothing to steal, rather than there is nobody in there. It also fits better in your example than the one given by the OP. – Thinkeye Mar 12 '18 at 19:00
  • I think this is the best answer. – Fattie Mar 14 '18 at 11:22
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    It does require the reader to infer the meaning "empty of people" from the context (as opposed to "empty of everything", which would be disappointing for the burglars). That's probably reasonable (in the given context) as most of us don't take all our possessions on holiday. (I'll ignore caravanners here...) – Toby Speight Mar 14 '18 at 12:43
  • I have to agree with Brichins. "Empty" is likely the most expected term, "unattended" conveys a sense that you were irresponsible for leaving it vulnerable, and "Vacant" or "unoccupied" typically refer to a place that doesn't have anyone living in it, rather than that they stepped out for a holiday. In normal conversation though an adjective would be redundant. You were on holiday and your house was burgled. That the house didn't have anyone in it at the time is implied by saying you were on holiday. Empty or Vacant are your two best options that I can think of if you must add an adjective. – Ruadhan2300 Mar 15 '18 at 13:16
  • @TobySpeight: You're right, of course. But we probably wouldn't pause on it if we were reading it; it probably stands out to use here because we're thinking about it. (Or, if we noticed it, we'd quickly move on once we had dismissed the mistaken notion that it was a bare, unfurnished place.) – Mathieu K. Mar 16 '18 at 03:18
65

I would use the word unattended, as opposite to attended.
From the Vocabulary.com Dictionary:

having a caretaker or other watcher

When I went on vacation, thieves climbed into my unattended apartment.

Laurel
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Thinkeye
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    Except that people don't usually think of themselves as "attending" an apartment; they're just living there, not "caretaking". – Acccumulation Mar 13 '18 at 22:01
  • it's simply not correct. there's no specific really unambiguous term for 'when its owners are on vacation?". – Fattie Mar 14 '18 at 11:21
  • This really isn't a good answer. The adjective "attended" can only be applied to nouns which are normally "attended" which an apartment is not. Saying that an apartment is "attended" is like saying that a giraffe is "slithering" or a cow is "barking". The best choice by far is "vacant" – TheEnvironmentalist Mar 14 '18 at 16:37
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    I agree with vacant as a good option, but suboptimal for the given context. For me vacant house means: unoccupied, available for buying, or moving in. Not in the sense of being burglary friendly. – Thinkeye Mar 14 '18 at 20:25
  • @Thinkeye so barking cow is better than vacant apartment? – TheEnvironmentalist Mar 15 '18 at 01:51
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    @TheEnvironmentalist Your comparison is not really good and you are using a fallacy here for sake of the argument. Even if you are right, you should make a valid point. – Ian Mar 15 '18 at 07:22
  • @Ian out of curiosity, which would that be? The English language does not allow certain word pairings, in this case the use of the word "unattended" for things which cannot be "attended". – TheEnvironmentalist Mar 15 '18 at 11:31
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    @TheEnvironmentalist It is just a faulty comparison. A "barking cow" has nothing do with an "unattended house". It is not even a grammatically comparable construction. Let's not escalate this discussion, just consider making your point with valid arguments. – Ian Mar 15 '18 at 11:46
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    Think of the phrase 'leaving a child unattended'. Children aren't usually 'attended' and yet they can be 'unattended.' In the child instance 'unattended' most closely means 'not being looked after,' which seems to be the same usage here for the apartment. – MMAdams Mar 16 '18 at 19:58
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    @Thinkeye - burglar friendly +1 – Mazura Mar 16 '18 at 22:13
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    This is an excellent answer. – Kiro Mar 17 '18 at 14:09
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    @TheEnvironmentalist What is your source for "The English language does not allow certain word pairings"? That's nonsense. You could absolutely describe a cow as barking if they were making an odd sharp noise for some reason -- in other words, context is important. In this context, the (very clear) implication is that there was no one present to attend to the home. – Matthew Read Mar 18 '18 at 03:03
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    Whether or not homes are ordinarily attended to is not relevant -- though you'll find that you're incorrect. For example: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=attended+to+the+house%2C+home+unattended&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cattended%20to%20the%20house%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Chome%20unattended%3B%2Cc0 – Matthew Read Mar 18 '18 at 03:03
25

You don't even really need a word for it. The reader will understand that your apartment is "unoccupied" from the context at the beginning of the sentence.

When I went on vacation, thieves climbed into my unoccupied apartment.

When I went on vacation, thieves climbed into my apartment.

Community
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Heather
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    This might work if you had already established that you live alone. But even then, you could have had house-sitters, or there could have been someone else (like a cleaner) in the apartment at the time. So while the reader might infer that no-one was present when the thieves got in, simply from the fact that you were on holiday, they could be wrong. if you want to make it certain that people draw that conclusion then I think you have to make it explicit. – Rupe Mar 13 '18 at 13:57
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    Unless it is made clear that someone else was inhabiting the home while they were gone, the assumption of the reader is that it is currently vacant, so I do not think that is necessary. – Heather Mar 13 '18 at 14:01
  • If I told my friends that I was on holiday, with no further information, they would not assume that my flatmate was also on holiday. The OP is looking for a word to communicate to someone the fact that the flat is empty (or whatever!), so a solution that fails to do that is no solution. Downvoted, sorry. – Rupe Mar 13 '18 at 14:11
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    You have proven my point of "context". Your friends know that you have a flatmate. That is their given context of the situation. They know that even if you are absent, it is likely your flatmate is still there. In terms of this person's question, he leaves us with no other information, so it is within context that the reader is to assume that the house is completely unattended. – Heather Mar 13 '18 at 14:15
  • On the contrary, you are undermining your own position. The OP is looking for a way of completing the sentence that they provided, so that it communicates the fact that the flat is empty. It is you who are asking the reader to infer context, not I. I am just providing an counter-example to show that without something to make the emptiness explicit, the reader might not get the meaning that the OP intends. They might conclude, "I do not know whether the flat was empty at the time". – Rupe Mar 13 '18 at 15:29
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    I think just "unoccupied" is fine - the fact that you're on vacation and not in your apartment establishes pretty clearly that it was only temporarily unoccupied, so adding "temporarily" doesn't really add much to what is already understood. – Myles Mar 14 '18 at 10:50
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    "unoccupied" (without the temporary was my initial reaction too). – Martin Bonner supports Monica Mar 14 '18 at 15:25
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    Don't need a word for it, +1. OP should just talk about themselves. They got broken into, while they were away. – Mazura Mar 16 '18 at 22:11
11

My home was robbed 1. / got broken into / burgled while I was on vacation

If you were on holiday/vacation, it's clear that your home was (briefly) UNINHABITED during that period, and as such unguarded.

… the higher rate of crime in the inner city may be due to the fact that many urban homes are unguarded during much of the day in single-person and two-career households.
… a final means of obtaining knowledge of unguarded homes is through information gathered while performing a legitimate occupation. ... several occupations used by residential burglars, including an interior decorator, a cable television installer, ...

RESIDENTIAL BURGLARY by George F. Rengert and Elizabeth R. Groff

1. technically inaccurate, but it is often used in speech

Mari-Lou A
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  • Unless you had housemates, or a house-sitter. – arp Mar 13 '18 at 18:10
  • @arp the question is about a homeowner (and his/her family) who find their home burgled when they came back from their vacation. The OP didn't hire a house-sitter or ask friends to stay over while they were gone, if they had the question wouldn't be asking what to call a home that has nobody living in it. – Mari-Lou A Mar 13 '18 at 18:29
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    Pedantically (and certainly legally, at least here), "robbed" is the wrong word as that involves a personal attack (or at least threat of physical force). Burglary can happen at an empty property, but robbery can't, by definition. – Toby Speight Mar 14 '18 at 12:39
  • @TobySpeight Hooray! Another supporter of precision in the use of theft/robbery/burglary. – Martin Bonner supports Monica Mar 14 '18 at 15:24
  • +1. I think the "while" part of the vacation clause is helpful—absent any other context, if someone started a sentence with "While I was on vacation, my house..." I would assume that whatever came next would relate in some way to the owners being absent from the house for a stretch of time ("...was broken into by opportunistic thieves/was watched by a neighbor/was rented out through AirBNB/wasn't heated and the pipes burst/was tented for termites" etc.). – 1006a Mar 14 '18 at 21:16
0

Uninhabited.

Because you still own it, you didnt rent it out, so it is not in truth exactly 'empty' or 'vacated' but no-one is living or 'inhabiting' it right now, so I think you can say 'While I was on holiday, thieves broke into my uninhabited apartment'.

Webster's Definition of uninhabited : not occupied or lived in by people : not inhabited

Jelila
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-5

I would go with "unalarmed" abode.

CrossRoads
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    Welcome to EL&U. Please improve your answer with references and explanations as to why you would choose that term. – Rupert Morrish Mar 12 '18 at 18:58
  • Why? Occupied apartments are also generally unalarmed. People set the alarm when the go out ... – DavidPostill Mar 12 '18 at 22:01
  • Although it sounds contrived to the uninitiated (me), it turns out that it could work. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/unalarmed shows it to mean a dwelling "not fitted with an alarm", which conveys the situation well: the thieves were able to commit their crimes by virtue of the place being without an alarm system. In turn, this implies that no one is in the house, or one would not mention the alarm system (or absence thereof). – Mathieu K. Mar 16 '18 at 03:13
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Re: apartment's occupants on vacation and thus no-one at home. You could create a US-neologism. How about "vacationated"? This combines vacation with vacated.
It resonates with vacant; the closest extant word to your need, as proposed earlier by Roger Lipscombe.

Winston Kirkmound
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    not appropriate answer as OP is looking for current accepted and defined words in the English language. – lbf Mar 13 '18 at 11:51