Your home is your castle. It’s where you go after a hard day’s work to find peace and tranquillity. It’s the place where you can feel safe and secure no matter what’s going on around you. This feeling should not be based solely on a belief of safety or a sense of security, but on specific actions and measures that you have taken to objectively make your home as safe as you feel it is.
Most of us have smoke detectors in our homes. You may even have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen and non-skid strips on your stairs. Even so, is that enough to really make your home as safe as it can reasonably be?
Having a safe home is not a one-time deal. You can’t install safety systems once and for all and then consider your home safe. A home is safe only if it is maintained as such. You may even take it a step further and say that having a safe home literally takes practice.
We are bombarded continually with messages about the importance of home safety products. Make sure you have a smoke alarm. If it’s mains powered, make sure you’re using fire resistant cable. Make sure you have a certified fire extinguisher. Make sure you have a CO2 detector. If you have a young child, make sure you have your assortment of cupboard locks, door guards and electrical socket covers. The messages just go on and on and on. Too often, however, the most crucial message about home safety is overlooked – the importance of exercising home safety behaviour.
It has been estimated that 97 percent of homes have smoke detectors, however, less than 19 percent of these have been tested at least quarterly. Performing routine checks on such safety devices is just as important as actually purchasing and installing them. In essence, families must adjust their behavioural patterns in such a way so that these home safety maintenance tasks become second nature.
Here are some tips to get you started in instigating this behavioural paradigm shift for your family. It costs no more than a little bit of your time, but it’s definitely worth it!
- Check your smoke alarms once a month. Make it a family activity and get everyone involved.
- Take a tour of your home and identify areas where someone might trip and fall. Make sure you take children of all ages into account as well since you may have visiting families. Take the time to eliminate any such hazards.
- Evaluate your habits in your home’s danger zones, such as the kitchen and the garage. Do you ever leave the stove unattended? Do you ever leave power tools plugged in?
- Examine the safety of your children concerning poisoning. Are household chemicals out of reach?
Changing your behaviour as far as home safety is concerned is comparable to developing a healthy lifestyle. Similarly, continual and consistent home safety habits should be incorporated into a family’s lifestyle to improve and maintain home safety.
