Protecting your home for Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a time for people to gather and celebrate everything good in life: food, friends, and family. Thanksgiving is it also brings forth a risk for your home’s security.
You should spend your time enjoying the time you have with your loved ones without worrying about the security of your home. If you are hosting this year’s Thanksgiving for your family, we hope you take some steps to tighten the safety and security of your home.
Some of the most at-risk members of your family during the holidays are your pets. Routine changes for wandering dogs and cats present more risks of escape and loss over the holidays, risks such as more frequent door openings. Innocent actions on behalf of guests, like going outside to their car, are risks for your pets’ safety, especially in colder weather.
To mitigate these risks, we recommend you take a few steps to ensure that your guests keep your pets in mind:
- Place signs to leave doors shut.
- Let everyone know not to let pets out.
- Ask guests to use only one door to move in and out of the house to reduce potential exit opportunities.
Large cooking projects can be dangerous. Every Thanksgiving, people lose their homes to house fires due to careless mistakes. For example, frying a turkey without proper knowledge can spark an enormous fire in seconds. Be safe and be prepared.
Atlantic Training provides a comprehensive cooking and fire safety list:
- Never leave your food unattended while frying or grilling.
- Use a timer and check in on cooking food.
- If frying or deep-frying, keep the fryer outside, away from walls, and free from moisture.
- Never use a glass casserole or lid on the stove or burner, as it may explode from the heat.
- Ensure that pot holders and food wrappers are a safe distance. Position those handles so that they face inward.
- Avoid dangling accessories or loose clothes around kitchen fires.
- Never douse a grease fire with water, as the fire can thus spread. Turn off the burner, smother the flames with a lid, or douse with baking soda or a fire extinguisher if it’s getting out of hand.
- Keep a fire extinguisher handy in the kitchen, and know how to use it.
- Ensure your smoke alarms are working.
- After the party, extinguish candles and fireplaces and turn appliances off.
Everyone deserves a break and time with the ones who matter most. We hope you keep these precautions in mind to ensure a successful and safe holiday. Happy Thanksgiving!
