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Resources for a Safer Home Environment

Home Safety Resources (06)

Home Fire Safety from the Red Cross
According to this fire safety page by the Red Cross, if a fire starts in your home, you may have as little as two minutes to escape. The best way to save lives, according to the web page, is to get an early warning from a working smoke alarm and to have an escape route that has been practiced regularly. The site offers a must-read short list of basic fire safety tips. This includes monthly testing of smoke alarms and making sure your young kids know how it sounds like. You should also create fire-escape plan that has two exit points, and should be practiced by all family members. These exits should also always be free from clutter. A monitored smoke and carbon monoxide detection system is also highly recommended. The site provided fire safety checklists and fact sheets that can be downloaded.

Carbon Monoxide Toolkit by the CPSC
Carbon monoxide, also known as "CO", is a colorless, odorless, poisonous gas. It is produced by the incomplete burning of solid, liquid and gaseous fuel. Therefore, any fuel-burning appliance in your home is a potential CO source. When appliances are kept in good working condition, they produce little CO. Improperly operating appliances can produce fatal CO concentrations in your home. In addition, using charcoal indoors or running a car in an attached garage can also cause deadly CO poisoning in your home. This informative resource by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) site advises people never to burn charcoal inside their home or garage, never leave a car running in an attached garage, not to use gasoline powered tools, and to invest in a carbon monoxide detectors. A carbon monoxide question and answer section with press releases, articles and more tips are available.

Emergency Preparedness and Response
This site section of the OSHA website offers a lot of information on the best way to prepare for and respond to various types of hazards and emergencies that can confront people in the workplace; however, much of the information is useful to know for preparedness at home. For example, there are sections on natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, floods and wildfires. There are also pages for specific hazards, such as anthrax, chemical hazards and terrorism, oil spills, pandemic influenza and radiation. There's also a resources and guides section with safety and health topic pages, QuickCards and fact sheets on safety topics, many of which are of importance to you at home, such as on asbestos, amputation, black widow and brown recluse spiders, fire ants, bloodborne pathogens, carbon monoxide, working with chain saws, fall prevention, flue, motor vehicle safety, and much more.

Safety Tips and Advice for Seniors
The Canada Safety Council web site offers several helpful articles to help keep seniors safe. The site offers a home adaptation checklist, as well as ways for older citizens to avoid online perils while using the Internet. Seniors have special safety concerns around the house and the articles on this site address dozens of safety tips covering virtually every aspect of potential danger for seniors. There are many aspects of home furnishings that can be dangerous for seniors, such as sharp edges, lose or wobbly construction, and the use of gates at the tops and bottom of stairs especially when dealing with Alzheimer's patients. Lighting and colors are also of concern, as are special needs of seniors with hearing impairments. You need to learn how to make the home more safe for those seniors who must use a walker or a wheelchairs or other mobility device, how to make the bathroom safe for seniors through the use of handrails, and hand-held shower attachments. There are also ways to make bedrooms and living rooms safer for older citizens, and to use bells and buzzers to help with answering telephones. There is information on outside lighting, fire safety tips, ideas for checking-in daily with a relative or a friend, carbon monoxide detectors, fireplace safety, even tips on the safe placement of shelving, and driving and taking winter walks.

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