With regards to monitoring (beyond preparing) There are now various companies (mostly real- estate related) that offer a check service.
If you have an alarm system that is monitored, you can have various sensors for water detection, heat, etc that can dispatch a friend when needed...police or fire as usual. The system also logs who and when people access your house. So they can tell you if its actually being visited and by whom.
If you have high speed internet, there are various monitoring tools available. For example you can purchase a DVR and attached a few cameras to it and see/hear/record the events in and around the house. Most cameras can see in the dark and record only on detection of movement. So you would just need to look at the logs of the machine and see if there are any recordings and play. Some also have input and output contacts that allow you to monitor control various devices and will email or sms upon detection. Almost all now can be viewed and controlled via smart phone. If you go this route, you should have a internet watchdog device that can reboot your DSL router upon loss of internet service (see
ControlByWeb | Ethernet I/O for Relay Control, and Data Acquisition for some of their devices). That should ensure the service stays up or returns upon loss of such things as power. A small UPS would be good to have. DVRs usually have built in watch dog process.