Keeping Your Home Safe For Others
Although you may read a lot about when you can sue, and what to do when someone’s negligence causes you an injury, what you may not read a lot about is how you can prevent injuring others. You may be a business owner, but even if you aren’t, and you just casually have people in your home, you could still be sued for negligence, just like a large business can be sued.
You don’t have to be a safety expert to avoid causing injury to someone else. Although nobody can guarantee that you will never be sued, there are some things that you can do to make that possibility much less likely, and which will make it more likely that you would be able to defend yourself, if you are ever sued.
Fixing Things
The first, and most obvious thing you can do, is be diligent in fixing things on your property that are broken, which could cause injuries. For example, is there a tile in your kitchen floor that juts up, causing an unsafe ledge? Is there a large hole in your backyard from when you dug up a small plant? Does the handrail on your stairway wobble because it isn’t secured tight enough?
Some fixes don’t even require a lot of money—keeping loose items (like children’s toys) out of the walking areas can go a long way to making sure that your home is safe for others.
Warn of Known Dangers
Is there something that you simply cannot fix, or that cannot be fixed right away? If so, your best option would be to warn others of the danger. Just like a store would do, you can use barriers, cones, or rope to cordon off dangerous parts of your home.
Kids and Supervision
Supervise your children—and your things. Kids can lead to liability, when there are more kids in your home than you can properly supervise. Think twice before having 10 children over your home to play, when it is just you there (or there aren’t enough adults to supervise). Never use the pool or the video game system as a de facto babysitter. And hide anything that young kids could injure themselves with, like knives or large items that could fall on children.
For older kids, watch your things-the car, the weapon in the home, the golf cart, or anything else that a not-yet mature teenager could get into trouble by using.
Certainly, things happen in life that we can’t control; negligence is often an accident. However, there are some things that you can control to make your property safer, which will protect both your family, and people who come into your home or business.
Were you injured while inside someone’s home or business? Contact the Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas Nunez Sanders Butler & Hovsepian for help today.
