Here’s how to maintain holiday safety, sanity
The holidays are a joyful time, a stressful time, and an expensive time — filled with trips back home or family members visiting you. Apartment living sometimes intensifies these experiences as we try to fit more people, more cooking and more decorations into smaller spaces. Here are a few tips:
• Visitors. Family togetherness is a wonderful thing, but check your lease and property rules before you invite all your cousins and their kids to stay in your apartment. Most leases have specific provisions about this, and there are fire code restrictions as well.
• Christmas trees. There’s nothing like the smell of a freshly cut Christmas tree in your living room, but check your lease and property rules first. Some properties prohibit real trees. If you do get one, maintain caution. Extension cords with multiple strings of lights can be a fire hazard. Real trees need plenty of water. Every year, HAA donates a tree to the Houston Fire Department in early December. They purposely let it dry, then invite
local media to watch them put a match to it around New Year’s Day. It makes for a pretty spectacular fire, which should be a lesson to all of us.
• Decorations. That giant inflatable snowman would look so cool on your balcony, right? Especially with a dozen strings of colored lights woven around the railing. Check with the property manager before you re-create the North Pole on your patio. Don’t overload electrical outlets. Candlelight is cozy, but candles are prohibited in many lease agreements. Consider using flameless candles instead. If candles are permitted, never leave them unattended or place them near flammable objects, such as curtains.
• Cooking. Holidays are all about food. Some of us do a lot of cooking this time of the year — often preparing more involved, complicated dishes to celebrate the season. The majority of apartment fires start in kitchens. With something baking in the oven and three pots on the stove top, it’s easy to make a mistake. Every apartment should have a small multi-purpose fire extinguisher near the entrance to the kitchen. Now is a great time to check the gauge to make sure it’s charged. See that everyone in your family knows where it is and how to use it. If your famous holiday blackened Cajun turkey breast blackens a bit too much and sets off the smoke alarm, make sure that alarm is reset with a fresh battery once you get things under control. If a smoke alarm or fire extinguisher is missing or broken, notify the manager in writing immediately.
• Heat. It’s hard to remember after our eight months of sweltering summer, but it occasionally gets cold in Houston. Your apartment has heat — it’s required by city ordinance. If the heat isn’t working properly, notify the manager in writing immediately. Avoid portable space heaters and other measures that may not be safe.