Organizing for Safety – Part 2

Continuing from last week’s post; more ideas in regard to organizing a safe environment: 

If you or your family members have difficulty walking or are disabled, consider paving the walkway from street to door – so it’s wheelchair accessible as well as easier to negotiate with a walker. This is, of course, especially important during the winter months. Keeping salt on hand for the walkways is also important, to eliminate snow and ice, and to reduce the potential for slipping and falling.

Inside your home, make sure fire extinguishers are readily available in the kitchen and anywhere else a fire would likely start. Make sure you have the right kinds of extinguishers, and they are in good working order (full) and not expired. And make sure everyone knows where the fire extinguishers are stored and how to use them. Read the directions and become familiar with them. Practice using them outside some time, so if/when the need arises, it’s not the first time they’re being operated. Fire extinguishers can only be used once, so before practicing make sure you have others on hand.

Take a few minutes and review the keys on your keychain and only keep the ones you use. If you cannot figure out what some of the keys are for – remove them and put them aside in a safe place you’ll remember. I suggest putting them in an envelope and dating it. Let some time (like a year or more) pass and then let go of ones that are out of date.

It’s good to review the keys on your keychain and only keep the ones you use because otherwise it’s hard to find what you need when you need it. Also, the weight of the keys can affect the steering column in your car. If you need to carry a lot of keys, buy one an “easy release” mechanism that allows you to detach the majority of your keys from the one key that’s used in the ignition. 

Also, have backup keys made if you only have one for some particular lock and it would greatly inconvenience you if you lost it. 

Remember: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” JFK

See you next week with more ideas on Organizing for Safety.

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