Your home is supposed to be the one place where you and your family always feel safe and secure, but sadly, this is not always the case and many accidents and illnesses can happen in, and be caused by your home if you are not careful.

The good news is, many of the accidents and illnesses that happen in the hope can be prevented if you know about them and take action to avoid them. That being the case, let’s take a look at some of the most common safety hazards you need to be aware of around the house.

Stairs

One of the most common causes of accidents in the home is people falling down the stairs, but of course, if you have more than one storey in your home, you cannot simply do away with upstairs you need to access the upper portions of your property, so what can you do?

First of all, if you have young children, elderly relatives or anyone else who might be more likely to fall down the stairs, install a stair gate at the top and bottom sections of the stairs so that they cannot gain access to them unaided.

It is also really important that your stairs have a well-maintained handrail that people can hold onto when they are walking up and down the stairs for balance and safety.

You should also avoid leaving things li,e toys or shoes on the steps because it only takes one moment of carelessness for someone to trip and fall. Potentially seriously injuring themselves in the process.

Rugs 

Rugs are a great addition to any home; they add warmth and color to the floor and help you to feel cozier when you’re at home. However, they can be surprisingly dangerous! For one thing, if you place a rug on a wooden or tiled floor and you do not use carpet tape to keep it in place, there is every chance it will slip and slide around, which could lead to you falling over when you walk over it. 

Not only that, but older people are more likely to trip an fall by getting their feet stuck underneath rugs than you might think, so if you must have rugs around the house, make sure you tape them into place and remove them from any areas where they could pose a problem to a vulnerable family member.

Water damage

If your home is water damaged, whether due to adverse wether conditions or because the pipes on your property have burst, then you need to call a professional water restoration company as soon as possible if you want to keep your family and your home safe.

Why? Because water damage can cause mold and damp to take hold of your home and both of those things can cause respiratory illnesses, amongst other things. Not only that, but water damage can affect the structure of your home, potentially making it far less, safe, which puts you and your family at risk of injury and greater expenses should your house start to crumble around you.

Mold

As we have just mentioned mold, it is worth noting that it can be a major safety hazard. Black mold, in particualr, can cause or worsen respiratory illnesses, do serious damage to the lungs, and cause you and your family to get very sick indeed.

It is always a good idea to avoid mold growing in your home in the first place. This is something you can do by using anti-mold paint when decorating, and by ensuring that your home is never too wet or humid by running a dehumidifier, opening the windows regularly and ensuring the place is adequately heated.

If you do start to see mold growth, then treating it with a mold removal solution is a good way to get rid of it, but you will need to keep on top of it to ensure it doesn’t keep growing back.

Carbon monoxide

If you have a heating system and a boiler or furnance, or even if you have an open fireplace or use propane, then you need to install a carbon monoxide detector in your home, which will alert you if the presence of said gas is detected in your space. Why is this so important? Because carbon monoxide is a silent killer that can make you very sick without you even realizing there is anything wrong. It can leak into the home when your boiler is faulty or your chimney flue is blocked, for example, so it is vital that, when you are heating your home, you are always watching out for carbon monoxide too.

The shower

The shower can be a surprisingly unsafe place for many people. When you think about it, it is not really surprising that a plasma that gets very wet and slippy could cause accidents to happen, but luckily, it is pretty easy to avoid shower-based slips, trips and falls by simply installing a rubber shower mat on the shower floor, which will give the cubicle more grip and help to avoid any unexpected accidents from occurring.

Cleaning products

It is important for the health of your family that you keep your home hygienically clean. In order to do this, chances are you will have a wide range of cleaning products from household bleach to toilet cleaner.

If you have young kids or family members who do not understand the dangers of such chemicals, for whatever reason, then there is always a chance they will end up poisoning themselves by drinking said chemicals or burning themselves by pouring them on their skin.

That is why it is so important that you always keep cleaning products out of the reach of children and vulnerable adults, and why you should ideally keep them in a locked cupboard or cabinet. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Fire

Your home should have smoke detectors in it at all times if you want to stay safe from the risk of fire, which you really do. There are so many things in the home that can cause fire to spread from candles that are left unattended to frying pans to the fireplace itself, that you need to endure you are always alert and that you always have a working smoke alarm on each floor to alert you and your family quickly if there is a problem. When it comes to fire, the sooner you get out, the safer you are likely to be so whatever you do, get a smoke alarm or two today.

Swimming pools and ponds

Of course, the garden can represent a very real safety threat for your family too, and this is, even more, the case if you happen to have a swimming pool or pond in the yard.

Children, and even adults too, can drown in a surprisingly small amount of water so large bodies of water are even more dangerous. If you have a pool, then covering it when you are not there to supervise is important, and if you have a pond, then fencing it off so your kids can’t access it without you, is so very important if you want to keep everyone as safe as can be.

The stove

The stove can be a safety hazard for every member of the family because it is so easy to burn yourself when you are busily cooking dinner for the whole family, but it is particularly of danger to children.

If you want to ensure your family is safe from the dangers of the stove, start by using the back burners rather than the front ones where possible. By doing this, you are less likely to end up knocking over a pan at the front of the stove, which could fall on you or the kids and cause burns.

You should also ensure that you do not leave kitchen towels close to the stove, as they could end up burning and causing you some problems.

Cleaning your stove regularly will help to get rid of grease, which means said grease is less likely to set fire and cause you to have to evacuate your home.

Plastic bags

Things like trash bags and plastic packaging are commonly found in the home, but they can cause a significant risk to children and pets from suffocation. If you have plastic bags on your property, then you should keep them in a locked drawer or cupboard and avoid leaving them lying around because it only takes a few seconds for your child to put the bag over their head or the dog to crawl inside for serious accidents to occur.

As you can see, there are a number of potential safety houses in the average house, but this should not scare you or make you worry unduly about your family’s wellbeing because, now that you know about them, you can remove them or make them safe so that your home is the haven of safety and security that it should be.