Getting the house safe for a toddler
The things that stop mattering once they can walk, and the ones that start.
Most childproofing is a trip to a hardware store and an afternoon. What is on this list is the part that is not: the things attached to the structure, where doing it badly is worse than not doing it.
Anchoring furniture is the one worth being blunt about. A bookcase or a dresser that a child can climb is the hazard people underestimate most, and a bracket into a stud is a different thing from a bracket into drywall.
The rest is stairs, water and the things that are already slightly wrong. A loose railing is a loose railing whether or not there is a toddler in the house; it just stops being something you mean to get to.
What it breaks down into
In roughly the order worth doing them. Each one goes straight to a post with the job already described — change anything you like before it goes up.
- childproofing and safety installsFurniture anchored into studs, gates fixed to something that will hold.
- stair and railing repairA railing is only a railing if it takes somebody’s whole weight.
- window repairWindows that open only as far as you meant them to, and latches that work.
- outlet and switch repairCovers are the easy half; a warm or loose outlet is the half worth a professional.
- smoke and CO detector installationThe one on this list that matters whether or not anybody is crawling.
- door adjustment and repairA door that latches properly is the difference between a closed room and a suggestion.
The other guides, if this was not the one.