Your home is meant to be a sanctuary; it’s meant to be the place where you know for a fact that you can feel safe. It’s the number one place where you can feel secure and have peace of mind. Ensuring the safety of your living space is paramount, and regular evaluation is key to identifying potential hazards. While yes, things like knowing the best security cameras are going to immensely help you out, this shouldn’t be the only thing you’re going to want to consider. What matters is testing out your home just to ensure that it meets all the safety requirements that you have on it. So, here is how you can test to see if your house is actually safe or not!
Take a Good Look at Your Walkways
When it comes to safety, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s not only about security monitoring. There’s just the general safety that you need to think about, such as fires, the potential of falling, tripping, and just getting hurt in general. So, when it comes to all of this, you’re going to want to just go ahead and take a look at your walkways, floors, indoors and outdoors. Overall, it can be stressful, especially if you’re dealing with mentally recovering from a break-in.
So, go ahead and look for tripping hazards such as loose rugs, cluttered pathways, or uneven surfaces. You’re also going to want to go ahead and ensure that all stairs and steps have sturdy handrails and consider adding slip-resistant materials to prevent accidents.
Are Your Detectors Working?
So, how’s your carbon monoxide detector? What about your smoke detector? Are you positive they both work? What you’re going to want to do is test your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors regularly to ensure they are functioning correctly. It might not be a bad idea to replace batteries at least once a year and consider upgrading to interconnected alarms to provide an early warning across your home.
Also, another thing you may want to think about is upgrading your home through smart home technology. Nowadays, this is one of the best ways to ensure your home is safe, especially considering the fact that they’ll give you updates on any potential issues well before anything happens.
How are Your Electrical Outlets?
Chances are, you probably know how dangerous electrical outlets can be if not well taken care of, right? Not just fires but the potential of getting electrocuted, too. On top of that, having general electrical issues in your home is clearly far from ideal. So, you’re going to want to inspect electrical outlets and cords for signs of wear or damage.
If you see any frayed cords, you’re going to want to replace them immediately, and you’re also going to want to go ahead and avoid overloading outlets to prevent electrical fires. Have kids? Well, there’s safety there that needs to be considered, too. You’ll need to install outlet covers to protect children from poking objects into outlets.
When was the Last Time You Checked the Furniture?
This is something that honestly gets overlooked fairly often, so when was the last time you checked your furniture? Not for damage but for the potential of it actually causing damage to you. Heavy furniture and appliances should be securely anchored to prevent them from tipping over, especially if you have young children.
Use brackets or straps to secure bookcases, televisions, and other items. Seriously, the last thing you want is for furniture like a wardrobe, drawers, bookshelf, or anything to tip over. A lot of accidents unfortunately happen, especially when it comes to children.
Don’t Forget the Water Heater!
Hot water doesn’t only hurt when you get burned, but you can get nasty burns and blisters from these, too. So, it might be a good idea to just go ahead and check the water heater and see how that’s going. It’s honestly as easy as checking the faucets or even the shower/ bath. Seriously, the last thing you want is to deal with scorching hot water when all you wanted was a comfortable temperature.
Is there a Fire Escape Route?
The harsh reality would be the fact that any house can catch on fire; regardless of how scary it is, it can happen to you. So, what options do you and your family have if there’s a fire? Is there an easy way to escape? Is it possible to exit through windows if the doors are blocked off? You’re going to want to ensure that windows and doors are easily operable and that everyone knows how to use them for a quick exit in case of emergency. Always make a plan with your family on how you all can escape.
