Home Safety Checklist For Los Angeles

Staying safe and secure in your home should be your topmost concern. But are you overlooking a few useful safety items? Take this home safety checklist for Los Angeles and see where your living space can use an update.

We give you some whole-home safety items, and then we delve down room-by-room. Then, contact (310) 421-1393 or complete the form below to talk to a security expert.

Essential Home Safety Checklist for Los Angeles

While you should use a individual room process for home safety in Los Angeles, there are a few items that work for all of your rooms. These devices can talk together through a wireless hub, and oftentimes work off other components. You can also manage all your home safety equipment with a mobile security app, such as ADT Control:

Monitored Home Security System: All your windows and doors should employ a sensor that alerts your family to forced entry. As the alarm triggers, your monitoring agent answers the alert and calls a first responder.

Smart Bulbs For Each Room: Sure, you can schedule your smart lighting so your home is more efficient. But they can also help you keep safe during an emergency. Make your smart bulbs flip on when a sensor trips to frighten off robbers or illuminate the way out to a safe area.

Smart Thermostat: Like your smart lights, a smart thermostat in Los Angeles can save you between 10%-15% in utility costs. But it also can turn on the exhaust fan if you have a fire.

Monitored Smoke Detectors: At the very least, you should have a smoke detector on each level. You can increase your fire preparedness by installing a monitored fire alarm that senses unusual smoke and heat, and alerts your 24-hour monitoring experts when it thinks that there’s a fire.

Smart Door Locks: Every entryway that utilizes a keyed lock can be made safer with a smart lock. Now you may assign numbered codes to friends and family and receive notifications to your phone when your locks are used. Your smart lock can even automatically turn off, helping you to quickly flee the house if you have an emergency.

Family Room Safety Checklist For Los Angeles

You’ll spend most of your time in the living room, so it can be the most reasonable room to start making your home more secure. Highly sought after items, like a big screen or video games, probably reside in your living room, making it a popular space for robbers. Begin with placing a motion detector or indoor security camera in your room, then continue on with all these suggestions:

Motion Sensors: By putting in motion sensors, you’ll get a loud alarm whenever they sense unexpected motion within your living room. The best devices are motion detectors that aren’t set off by pets or you’ll have your sirens go off each time your dog passes through for a drink of water.
Security Camera: An indoor security camera puts an eye on your living room. Watch constant feeds of your room so you can see what’s happening through the mobile app. Or speak with your kids in the room using the two-way talk feature.
Surge Protector/Cord Maintenance: Make sure you protect expensive electronics and quit overtaxing your electric system with a surge protector. For extra comfort, set up a smart plug with anti-surge functionality built-in.
Furniture Attached To The Wall: If you have any small children, you’ll need to secure your entertainment center or other heavy furniture to a wall. This is especially crucial if your family room has rugs or carpet that might make furniture extra unbalanced.
Enhanced Locks For Sliding Doors: If your family room uses a sliding door that opens to a backyard, deck, or porch, you already know that the lock is pretty thin. Install a custom lock, like a metal bar or small locks that are located on the top and bottom of the opening.

Kitchen Safety Checklist For Los Angeles

Your kitchen has plenty of items that should provide safety to your house. Most of these objects are also a snap to add and can be bought from the a retail store:

Fire Extinguisher: Fire can happen from an overfilled skillet or an errant grease splatter. Always have a fire extinguisher in close reach for any kitchen emergencies.
GFCI Box On Every Outlet: A GFCI outlet should be installed anywhere they’re close to running water to ward off an electric shock. That includes the outlets around your kitchen counter and sink. Since 1987, it’s been standard to have one circuit interrupter outlet per circuit. But for simplicity’s sake, you’ll want to install a separate GFCI per outlet.

Monitored Carbon Monoxide Detector: A CO detector is handy in spaces that have gas for the oven and stove. If your gas burners leak, the carbon monoxide detector will play a high-decibel siren and ping your monitoring center.
Clorox Wipes Or Spray: The biggest safety hazard in the kitchen is the invisible bacteria and cross-contamination that comes with blood from meat and other foods. Always store disinfectant wipes or an antibacterial spray to scrub off your surfaces before and after preparing food.
Refrigerator Alarm: The milk, meat, and perishables in the refrigerator need to remain at a chilly temperature to be ready to eat. If you accidently leave the refrigerator door open too long, then an alarm beep will let you know so you can close the door. Some fridges already have an alarm, some won’t, and you’ll have to get an external alarm from online.

Bathroom Safety Checklist For Los Angeles

Just because you don’t a bunch of room in your bathroom there’s still safety issues. From water problems to medicine care, here are some safety improvements for your bathroom:

Flood Sensors: A leaking toilet or tub can cause an expensive amount of water damage. Find a leak with a flood detector and save yourself from renovating the whole bathroom.
Non-slip Shower Mats: A slip and fall in the bathroom can be painful, causing pulled muscles, sore joints, or sprained ankles. Or avoid these hazards with a textured bath mat for your wet feet.

No-slip Bathtub Stickies: Like a tiled floor, a tub basin can be a slippery surface to be on. It’s a good idea that each tub has some no-slip stickers so your feet have a textured patch for stability.

Medicine Door Latch: If you have curious toddlers or anyone with memory difficulties, you have to take additional care regarding prescribed medicine. Safeguard your prescriptions by installing a medicine cabinet with a latch that locks.

GFCI Circuits: Just like the kitchen, you will have to also use a surge protecting circuit interrupter outlet on every bathroom circuit. These will stop the flow of the electric current if water enters the outlet or they experience a harmful surge from a curling iron or hair dryer.

Child’s Bedroom Safety Checklist For Los Angeles

Your kid’s bedroom should counterbalance safety with simplicity. If their window treatments or other things are safe but hard to operate, then your child may get around the device with unsafe activities -- like climb a bookshelf -- to open them. Try these simple, and safe, ideas:

Cord-Free Window Treatments: Safety professionals have long called cords from shades and blinds a secret hazard for both children and pets. Use motorized blinds or shades that your child can easily manage via remote. Or go state-of-the-art and connect your shades to your ADT security system so they can raise automatically when the sun comes up, and go down in the evening for added darkness.

Tableside Security Camera: A camera sitting on your child’s desk can behave as a high tech baby monitor that you can watch from a mobile device. And if they need your help, they can use the intercom talk button on the camera.

Plug Covers: While every outlet should have protective covers on them to protect your young children, this is doubly urgent in their bedroom. It’s the main place in your home where your child will most likely play alone without parental supervision.

Window Fire Ladder: If you have bedrooms on above the first floor, then you need to install a window escape ladder. These should let your children escape when the hallway or ground floor are engulfed in smoke and fire. Remember to go over how to employ the ladder a few times a year.

Toy Chest Or Low Bookshelves: It’s interesting to think about a toy chest as a safety device, but you’ll understand if you’ve ever stepped on an action figure in your stocking feet. A uncluttered floor gives your child a quick way out if there’s a safety or security event.

Master Bedroom Safety Checklist For Los Angeles

Your main bedroom should be your calm space, so let your safety components make you more responsive if you have an emergency. After all, being startled awake by a high-decibel alarm can be confusing.

Smart Hub Touchscreen: Having a touchscreen on your dresser gives you a sense of what’s going on without getting out of bed. You could alternatively turn on your ADT phone app. However, the large touchscreen is often better to use when you’re bleary-eyed and disoriented.

Device Charging Station: We depend on our cell phones for so much now GPS, internet searches, game machines, and sometimes even phones. The only problem is that an uncharged device will cut us off from the outside world if there’s a problem. So, a charging cord or station becomes should be used nightly.

Smart Lights Or Nightlights: A plug-in light helps ground you when you’re startled awake from a fire alarm or other loud sounds. If you won’t drift off to sleep with an outlet light, use smart lights in your bedroom and hall. Then you can have light simply with a mobile device or voice command.
Fireproof Lockbox: Keep your vital papers like birth certificates, medical information, or a bankbook in a fireproof lockbox. This can be a large one that sits out of the way or a small handheld safe that you can grab on your way out during a fire or break-in.

Heat Sensor: The drawback with bedrooms is that they might feel too hot or be cold because they sit far from the thermostat. A heat sensor will talk to your smart thermostat so you should have a comfortable, relaxing sleep at a wonderful temperature.

Basement/Garage Safety Checklist For Los Angeles

Most safety problems in the garage or basement have to do with your water heater or furnace. Discovering issues before they start can stop bigger emergencies later on. So, as you walk around your basement or garage, take note of these crucial items:

Flood Detector Or Sump Pump Alarm: Placing a flood alarm in back of your water heater and sump pump drain can prevent you from discovering a pond when you walk into your garage or basement. The last you need is to spend the weekend getting rid of standing water and sorting through all those storage boxes.

Carbon Monoxide Detector: It’s smart to have a CO detector in areas where a natural gas leak can occur. If you have gas heating, you should put an alarm in the same room as your HVAC unit.
WiFi Water Shutoff Valve: If your water alarm detects a hot water heater leak or a broken pipe, then you will have to shut off the main water line at once. With a remote shutoff valve, you can block water flow from anywhere in the world. That’s nice when you’re out of town and get a flood sensor alert on your smartphone.
Garage Door Sensor: Leaving the garage door open leads to all sorts of issues. You can lose heat or air through that open door, and rodents or intruders can just wander in. A sensor will text you about a forgotten garage door and allow you to close it through the app.
Heat Sensor: A heat sensor in your basement or garage is handy if you wonder about your pipes freezing. The heat in these areas can be surprisingly different than the rest of the house, so you will need to maintain a close look on them with the ADT mobile app.

Outside Perimeter Safety Checklist for Los Angeles

Your landscaping, driveway, and front step are just as imperative to secure as the interior of your home. Try this checklist to create a safe outside:

Doorbell Security Camera: See who’s arrived at the the front step before you answer it and welcome guests. View package deliveries and record video clips if they vanish off the step.

Outdoor Security Camera: You can install outdoor security cameras to notify you about unusual movement in your back yard. These devices are nice in places where you might not have a window installed -- like around a cellar or by the garage door.

Window Height Shrubbery: Tall foliage can create some solitude, but they also block your line of sight of the outside. Don’t provide potential burglars a dark shadow to hide. Plus, large bushes, shrubs or trees too close to your house can obstruct gutters and bring in ants and termites.
ADT Signs And Decals: One of the most popular deterrents for home intrusion is telling would-be intruders that you use a state-of-the-art ADT security system. An ADT sign by the front door and a window cling will tell people that they ought to move on to an unprotected target.

Motion Controlled Porch Light Fixtures: Light is the largest obstacle to people who sneak around in the shadows. Motion-controlled flood lights on your deck, patio, or garage can frighten possible intruders away. They also help you work the locks when you get to the house late after work.

Call Secure24 Alarm Systems To Help You With Your Home Safety Checklist for Los Angeles

While Secure24 Alarm Systems can’t help you with non-security devices on your Los Angeles home safety checklist, we can install a powerful home security system. With alarms, security cameras, and home automation, we can personalize the best system for your home’s needs. Just phone (310) 421-1393 for more information or send in the form below. Or customize your own ADT system with our Security System Designer.