Your laundry room may be the focus of one of your biggest household chores, but it also presents plenty of hazards. Be sure to clean up your mess, and pay attention to these items and areas to help keep your home safe:

* Buckets/tubs: When not in use, empty and store buckets and tubs upside-down to help prevent spills and to prevent children from accessing hazardous chemicals.

* Floors: Clean up any spills immediately. Also keep the floor clear of items to help prevent falls.

* Washer and dryer: Stay nearby while the washer and dryer are in operation. Prevent fires by cleaning out the dryer lint trap before each use. Also, install smoke detectors and heat sensors included with your ADT security equipment or other home alarm systems to alert you in case of an emergency.

Despite the frightening figures on home invasions and property crimes, many homeowners are still reluctant to invest in a home security system.  They feel that the initial installation and monthly monitoring fee is too much to pay for the security of their home and its contents.

Unfortunately, many homeowners don’t install home alarm systems until after they’ve had a break-in.  If your home is invaded, you may be faced with thousands of dollars in damaged and stolen items.  Suddenly, the cost of installing and maintaining a home security system seems much more reasonable.

Of course, not every home will be broken into.  There are plenty of households that will never have to deal with the shock of seeing their home in disarray or the confusion of filing a police report and insurance claim.  However, those homes can benefit in other ways from having home security systems.

Just the presence of a home security system can ward off some burglars.  Faced with the choice between trying to disarm a home security system and breaking into the unsecured house next door, most burglars would prefer the easier target.  Homeowners who let it be known that their home is protected may never have to rely on their home security system precisely because it is there.

Home security provider ADT has built up an impressive home protection system.  They feature a vast network of interconnected monitoring centers all across the US to ensure that if your home is ever in danger, they can react quickly.

ADT home alarm systems can alert the authorities for you if anything happens to your home.  Their security systems offer a fire protection service which can call your local fire department if a fire is detected in your home.  Even if you are away from home when a fire breaks out, your property will be protected.  The ADT system can also call other rescue personnel as appropriate for the situation.  In many cases, the authorities can be there within minutes of the alarm sounding.

ADT’s monitoring centers are manned 24 hours a day, every day of the year.  The employees monitoring the network are highly trained home security professionals.  If anything happens to your home, they can notify both you and the police.

Besides protecting your home and its contents, a home security system can actually save you money every month.  Most homeowner’s insurance providers give discounts for homes that are equipped with security systems.  For homeowners who are concerned with the cost of maintaining a security system, this discount can help to offset the monthly monitoring fee.

The decision to install a home alarm system should be an easy one.  There’s no better way to protect your home, your belongings, and your family.  The cost of keeping a home security system is very reasonable, and it’s even more reasonable when you weight it against the potential costs of a break-in or a home fire.  You simply can’t put a price on the security of your home and family.

The Home Safety Council hosts a wonderful website designed to provide awareness to home safety issues and educate your family on to practice home safety steps in your home or neighborhood. The Home Safety Council was issued a $1 million grant for Fire Prevention and Safety from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

As a result of this grant the Home Safety Council has been providing a series of Webinars on various fire safety and prevention topics. April’s Webinar is titled Fire Safety for Older Adults and People with Disabilities. Previous Webinars have been on juvenile fire setting, school fire safety, scald burn prevention and other similar topics.

Viewing these Webinars is an excellent way for your community to learn about fire safety. The Home Safety Council will send all participants a sampling of the Webinar material for free after each Webinar. For more information on these programs visit the Home Safety Council online at http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/.

There is no substitute for being prepared in case of a fire emergency. Sometimes even the best preparations are not enough to protect you and your family. A rapid response from emergency personnel is essential to getting your family out quickly and safely.

The best way to ensure that your home and family are protected for any emergency is to have a home alarm system with professional monitoring services installed. Choosing a home security service can be a difficult task. The two top names in the home security industry are ADT home alarm systems and Brinks. Take care not to simply pick one without researching the facts. It could mean the difference between life and death for your family in the event of a fire.

ADT and Brinks both have highly trained staff in their Customer Monitoring Centers that are prepared to assist you during any emergency. Both companies have easy one touch buttons to contact the CMC’s if you are in need of emergency assistance. Both have smoke and heat sensors to detect a fire early. That is about where the similarities end when it comes to immediate emergency response.

Brinks and ADT both advertise 24/7 home monitoring but is it really 24 hours a day 7 days a week? In the case of ADT it certainly is. ADT Security Services has a total of five Customer Monitoring Centers in different locations. Unlike ADT, Brinks only has one CMC. This leaves the Brinks CMC vulnerable to power less and natural disasters. Certainly both companies have backup power plans but in the event of a large scale disaster backup generators may not be able to work they entire time. When a call gets routed to an ADT Monitoring Professional it can be immediately routed to another center if needed. This means that your family will truly be protected 24 hours a day 7 days a week with an ADT Home Security system.

Another important area of difference is the way that the monitoring center is contacted. Both companies utilitize a standard telephone line in the event that the CMC needs to be contacted. Only ADT home alarm systems offer Safewatch Cellguard. In the ever increasing wireless age this technology is a wonderful enhancement to your security system. Safewatch Cellguard contacts the monitoring center using a nearby cellular tower. This means that the center will be contacted even if the telephone line is not working in your home.

In the event of a fire you will be unable to answer your phone. Hopefully you will be on your way out of the home at the time the alarm goes off. If you are still in the home an added benefit of ADT security systems is the ability to talk with the ADT associate through the unit itself. ADT can hear you speaking from up to 100 feet away from the unit. This technology is currently not installed in the Brinks security system. The comfort of being able to hear that help is on the way is sometimes all you need as you make your way to safety.

Take the time to research your home alarm options for the safety of your family. Check the Home Safety Council for information on fire preparedness and how to educate your family and friends. You will be glad you did.

In this new era of economic uncertainty, and with job fluctuations and natural disasters causing populations to shift from city to city, safety and security are quickly becoming hot topics for the upcoming year.  And depending on where you live, the level of security you need to protect your home and family could vary.

New Orleans, LA, the Gulf Coast city still recovering from the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, topped the QC Press’s list of U.S. cities with the most reported crime.  The city’s top spot on the “City Crime Rankings” report was earned based on reports of more than 19,000 incidences of six major crimes – 209 of those, murder – in 2007.  Camden, NJ; Detroit, MI; St. Louis, MO; and Oakland, CA took the next four rankings after New Orleans.

According to an article on CNN.com, criminologists and the U.S. Conference of Mayors have criticized previous editions of the rankings saying the FBI misreads federal crime statistics. But QC Press stands by its methodology for creating accurate models to compare similar communities.  The six crimes considered in the study are: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft.

Regardless of the minute details of the report, it’s always a good time to ensure your home and family are protected from any possible crime.  And the best way to do that: installing a quality home alarm system.

ADT Security Services has been ranked as the #1 choice of home security providers among American homeowners.  Their quick-response alarm system, network of 5 monitoring centers and technologically-advanced security equipment make them a leader in home security.

Aside from the benefits ADT provides homeowners, the security company helps protect more than 90 percent of the country’s Fortune 500 companies through its monitored security systems. Also on the ADT corporate list: more than 80 percent of the country’s top retailers, more than two dozen of the nation’s top national and regional bank holding companies, 72 U.S. airports, and all federal courthouses nationwide.

With a customer list like this, ADT responds to thousands of crimes in progress each year, and helps thwart many would-be burglars from entering homes and businesses with its yard signs and window decals.

While the country may be in flux, and crime may be on the rise, with and ADT home alarm system, you don’t have to sacrifice your sense of safety.