How to Keep Your Home Safe - 131 Great Ideas for Keeping Your House Safe

Your house is a lot more than wood and plaster. It's your family's retreat from the world. You've worked hard to make your house a home. And there's more to do. It's time to get the facts on how to keep your family safe at home.

This guide will provide you with dozens of essential tips on home safety for you and your family.

This book covers the following areas:

* Flooring and Stairs

* Preventing Accidents in the Home

* Keeping the Home Safe for Children

* Preventing Fires

* Electrical and Storm Safety

* Handling Insecticides

* Guarding Against Burglars and Intruders

Here's just a small sample of the tips included:

Keep baking powder on hand for extinguishing a kitchen fire in an emergency.

Don't put hot tea, coffee, or other hot liquids on a table cloth that hangs way over the side of the table. Someone could trip on the cloth and spill the scalding liquid.

Keep the gas cooktop away from open windows where curtains could blow into the flames or where wind could extinguish the cooking flames.

When handing a knife to someone else, always hold the point turned away from the other person.

Keep the handles of pots and frying pans turned inward on the kitchen range so that they cannot be knocked or tipped over by accident.

This is especially important if there are young children in the household.

Check all your child's toys to be sure any eyes, noses, knobs, or other parts will not come off when pulled or chewed.

Never leave a small child unattended in the bathtub.

In the bathtub face your child toward the hot water faucet so he won't accidentally bump into the hot metal.

Don't hold a child on your lap while you drink or pass a hot beverage, or while you smoke.

Tie a bell around all bottles and containers that hold poisonous materials in the house to alert you to your child getting into something dangerous.

Store all your poisonous materials on high shelves, out of the reach of children. And remember to label the containers.

Some poison control centers supply stickers to put on dangerous chemicals so that a child understands tha t they are harmful. Ask if these are available in your locality.

It's best never to place pillows in an infant's crib and. to keep the crib completely away from the cord of a Venetian blind.

Never place a plastic bag or thin plastic covering within reach of an infant or small child, or near the child's bed.

Don't run extension cords under the rugs.

The cords wear easily and may short out, causing a fire.

Keep combustibles away from the furnace, which can give off flames or sparks at times.

For basic protection at minimum expense, locate one smoke detector in the hallway near each separate sleeping area. (More complete protection calls for a detector on every level of a home.

Don't mount a smoke detector in areas where the alarm can be triggered inappropriately such as by smoke from cooking, steam from the shower, or in the garage where combustion products from the car's engine can set it off.

Remember that smoke detectors are unreliable below 40 F.

Some fire departments supply stickers that can be placed in a window to alert firefighters to the presence of a child or an elderly or handicapped person. Inquire if such stickers are available in your locality.

If you live or work in a high-rise building, locate the fire exits on your floor. If an alarm sounds, remember that you should always use the fire stairs, not the elevator.

Learn to distinguish the sound of a fire alarm in your building from the sound of an elevator alarm bell. If you think someone' s trapped in the elevator when, in fact, the building is starting to go up in flames, you could be in serious trouble.