When a house becomes a home, it’s easy to become a little too comfortable with our surroundings and see our property as some invincible entity which cannot be tarnished. In reality, of course, your home could be causing you health problems or posing safety and security risks without you even taking notice of these potential hazards.
Just because somewhere is “home” and it feels safe, that doesn’t mean it is safe. This shouldn’t be a cause for panic, of course, but there are some general safety tips you should consider and basic things you should be checking around your household to ensure that neither your health nor physical security is threatened by the state of your home.
Checking for asbestos.
Asbestos is something which used to lurk in floor tiles, insulation and even plumbing. It can greatly affect your health, so (and this especially applies to an old property which you might be renovating) you should definitely proceed with caution and ensure that you remove the risk of any potential asbestos before undertaking major work. This fibrous material has been removed from the majority of modern homes, but it still lingers in older properties.
Checking the construction work.
It’s the physical aspects of our house, in terms of maintenance, which can be affected by factors outside our control that we should remember to check more than anything. You rely on the physical state of your house to keep you safe, so you should be fixing that loose board in the attic if you think you’ve piled a few too many things up there and you should be fixing the boiler if the house feels too cold even when radiators are turned on. If you’re wondering how to spot foundation problems, for example, you might want to start by looking into the soil beneath your home.
Of course, with any matter of structural integrity, you might want to look into professional help, if in doubt. This is about living in a safe and happy home, at the end of the day, which is very hard to do if you can’t trust the safety of the very structure of your house itself. With older builds, this becomes increasingly important as the effect of passing years is that nature and time will wear away at your property.
Checking that your home is protected from intrusion.
You might be nodding your head and thinking to yourself that you’ve already got this aspect of home safety covered. This is the number one fear for most homeowners, so, of course, the majority of people will implement some form of safety protocol in their house. However, this doesn’t mean you’ve done so successfully. Burglars aren’t completely blind to the tricks people use, and leaving on a light in the living room isn’t going to do the trick. In fact, some robbers might be able to pick out the suspicious house with one light left on at one in the morning as a clearly empty property.
Opt for legitimate security methods, such as installing CCTV cameras. Keep the cameras visible, and you’ll deter the majority of potential burglars. The best part of this security method, however, is that the burglars who aren’t deterred by cameras will be recorded and more easily caught following the robbery anyway. You win and they lose either way. Don’t go for security gimmicks, because they do nothing to actually protect your home and they might, in fact, make you stick out like a sore thumb to potential robbers.
