Christmas Tree Safety.
Every year their are accidents involving Christmas Trees. The two
main causes are trees falling on young children or the fairy lights causing a fire. Check your tree
is really secure and don't let small children near it unattended. Check your fairy lights carry the
British Standards mark and do not leave them on while you are out of the house.
- A plug in Residual Current device is a good idea as it will protect you and others from electrical shock if the lights do develop a fault.
- Going away for Christmas or the New Year?
- Then keep it a secret! Don't let the local thieves know.
- Cancel regular deliveries (newspapers, milk)
- Don't announce you will be away, tell only those who need to know.
- Fit automatic switches to lights and a radio to make it look and sound like you are at home.
- Ask a neighbour to look after your house by dropping in twice a day to open and close the cur- tains, move the mail, switch lights on and off.
- Ask a neighbour to park a car on your drive way and put a bin bag outside your house on bin day.
- Don't leave stealable goods in sight from a window.
- Do anything to make your home look occupied.
- Make sure you lock the doors! You would be surprised how many people leave their home unlocked.
- And all those receipts and Guarantees . . .
- Yes, aren't there a lot of them? But they could be useful if the present needs to be exchanged or repaired, so put them in a sealed envelope with the gift so the recipient can open it if they ever need to.
- Don't forget, as soon as possible mark your property with your postcode and house number - we have got pens you can use if you need one.
- If the present has a serial number, record it along with a description and the date you received it in a book, that information may be vital for an insurance claim or to help the Police trace missing property.
- But most of all - DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE
- We all like a festive drink or five, and there is not much wrong in
that. Trying to judge how
much you can safely drink is almost impossible, so use my well proven
method, don't drink any
alcohol if you are going to drive.
Have an extra few when you get home. It's easy! There is always a temptation to have a festive drink in the evening and then drive, after all it's only one, or two, or maybe three. Oh, and I forgot the couple I had lunch time, and one mid-afternoon in the office. By this time you are way over the limit. So what can (and probably will) happen if you drink and then drive, even if you feel ok and fill in control? Well here is what does happen a lot at this time of year:
- You could hit a pedestrian or animal and kill them.
- Hit another car or a bike and kill or injure the people.
- Have an accident and kill yourself or your passengers.
- Crash the car and cause a huge amount of damage- remember the Police will breathalyse you if you are in an accident and your insurance company may not pay out.
- Be prosecuted for drink driving, which will result in the loss of
your licence, a fine, increased insurance for the next five years and
probably prison. Essex magistrates come down hard on drink drivers at
Christmas.
So once Christmas is over ???.
Now you have got lots of nice news presents! So keep hold of them and mark them.
We do keep banging on about property marking, but with good reasons, such as:
Basildon Police station have a huge room full of recovered stolen property, but they cannot return to the rightful owners because they have no idea who the owners are. They rarely get a burglar to own up to where the they stole the goods from, usually because they cannot remem ber.
When the Police stop a van they is full of HiFi and videos it is impossible to prove the goods are stolen if they are unmarked - the usual explanation is got then at a boot sale. Now if the goods are property marked the Police could check their records and even contact the address on the markings.
Property marking helps in both ways and takes only minutes to do.
If you need help, call us. We have the equipment and the instructions and it's all free.
