Halloween’s time for home safety
More visitors come to your home on Halloween than the rest of the year combined, so make sure your decorated house and yard are ready with these six safety tips:
• Light the scene by providing plenty of illumination so that visitors can see where they are walking. Use the highest-wattage bulbs your outdoor lighting fixtures can safely take, and consider using solar LED landscape lights along your front walk.
• Secure the footing for youngsters more focused on tricks and treats than watching where they are going. Clear your walk and remove from the front porch and yard anything a child could trip over, such as garden hoses, toys and lawn ornaments.
• Eliminate fire hazards by keeping lighted candles and jack-o-lanterns away from landings and doorsteps where costumes could brush against the flames. Halloween ranks among the top five days of the year for candle-related fires, so consider using LED-bulb faux candles in place of the real thing and never leave burning candles unattended. Dried flowers, cornstalks, hay stacks and crepe paper are also highly flammable, so keep these decorations away from all flames and heat sources.
• Secure your property to prevent burglaries and Halloween pranks. Lock up doors and windows and turn on motion-sensor lights at the end of the evening to discourage vandalism. If you have collected an impressive Halloween yard display, either find a way to secure props and decorations or bring them inside.
• Use safe light strands that have been purchased from a reputable retailer and look for the UL mark. A red UL mark means the lights are certified for both indoor and outdoor use; green is for indoor use only. Be sure and check the rating on your extension cords and do not plug in more than the recommended wattage. Use special heavy-duty extension cords for highwattage decorations such as fog machines and electrically powered inflatable decorations. Halloween is becoming the secondmost popular holiday to light up a home’s exterior, so have fun with decorating but be careful, too.
• Enhance street safety for child pedestrians and limit the danger as much as you can by clearing parked cars off the curb to allow better visibility. Consider posting a reflective “Watch for children” sign on your street.
—Adriana Donofrio, Podley Properties Glendora, 626-914-2904 adrianad@podley.com
