By Rick Ryckeley
Fayette County Fire & Emergency Services

Congratulations, Mister Right! You're a new home owner! Whether you've built or bought, you still have a few things to do before the family can feel comfortable, safe, and secure.

To help the family feel comfortable, you've let everyone pick out their own rooms. Your twelve year-old daughter's room is on the second floor, to the right, at the end of the hall. She picked this room because "it has the largest closets, a bathroom with a make-up table in the corner and it's as far away as I can get from my brothers." She feels comfortable with her choice of rooms, but what about her brothers?

Your two sons are six and ten. Their rooms are also on the second floor and to the left. They share a bathroom, but they don't mind you can pretty much bet they won't use it much anyway. Both of your boys' bedrooms have small closets, but that's okay because they're just as happy to throw clean clothes under the bed along with the dirty ones as they are to use a closet. They feel comfortable in their dirty rooms, but what about your room?

Your room is on the main level, in the back of the house far, far away from the kids. This living arrangement is comfortable for you and your wife, but how secure and safe is it?

To make sure everyone is secure in the new dream house, you've added window screws to all the windows. You've replaced the old locks on the outside doors with double-keyed deadbolt locks. The new fire and burglar alarm you had installed last week works just fine, except the cat keeps setting off the motion detectors. New smoke alarms are on each floor of the house, in the basement and in the kitchen. Last week you replaced all of the batteries and tested the alarms if a fire breaks out, your family will be alerted and get out safely.

Yes, the family is comfortable in the bedrooms they picked out. The family is now secure in those rooms because you've installed window screws on all the second floor windows too. Now, you can go to bed knowing no one can get inside your house without a key. But, can your family get out? Without knowing it, Mister Right, you've just traded safety for security.

The fire started in the kitchen about 2 a.m. (Most home fires happen at night.) The fire burned undetected for 15 minutes until the smoke alarm in the hallway alerted Mister Right. He had taken the battery out of the new smoke detector in the kitchen last month because he got tired of it going off while he was cooking. He didn't know about the smoke alarms that are specially made for use in the kitchen.

As the fire engulfed the staircase, Mister Right fought his way through the smoke to the front door. His plan was to get the ladder from the garage and rescue the kids out the second-story windows, but the door wouldn't open; it was locked, and he didn't know where the keys were. Mister Right didn't hang the keys next to the door in case a fire started so everyone could find them and get out safely. He should have installed deadbolts with turn knobs on the inside so his family could get out without using a key. Installing double-keyed deadbolt locks was not a good idea after all.

Mister Right's children heard the fire alarm upstairs and crawled to the bedroom door, felt the door to see if it was hot, cracked the door and saw smoke, closed the door and looked for another way out. They thought, "We'll use our second way out of the room the window." They opened the box below the window that held the new escape ladder Dad bought at the hardware store. They wanted to throw the ladder out the window and climb down to safety but couldn't. They couldn't open the window because Mister Right used a three-inch window screw to secure the window. Using window screws on bedroom windows was not a good idea after all.

The fire department was alerted by the alarm company that there was a fire at the residence. They arrived with the special equipment needed to open the front door. As a team of firefighters rescued Mr. Right and his wife from the smoke-filled downstairs, another team fought back the fire. They asked if anyone is upstairs, and before he could answer, another team of firefighters was rescuing the children. They extended ladders to the second-story windows and forced them open. Mister Right, your children were smart and stuffed towels under the bedroom door to keep the smoke out. With help from the firefighters, the children got out safely. Mister Right and his family were safe, but heavy damage was done to their dream home. In the process, Mister Right learned a few things about what it takes to truly be comfortable, safe and secure.

Mister Right learned to only use deadbolt locks that don't need keys to open them from the inside. He learned to never use window screws on bedroom windows. He also learned that he should've installed a smoke alarm that was specially made for the kitchen instead of taking out the battery when he cooks. We've learned that, just like Mister Right, you could do everything to make your family comfortable, safe and secure and still be dead wrong.

If you have any questions about deadbolt locks, window screws, or smoke alarms, drop by your local fire department; they'll be happy to help you out.

[Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at saferick@bellsouth.net.]

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