7 Ways to fireproof your house

Pic credit: flickr.com

We are all no strangers to fire damages. Accidental fires can devastate large amounts of valuable property leaving behind not only ash and debris but also toxic gases. Often a lot can be done beforehand to prevent everything from going down in flames. Simple changes like using more non-combustible materials and being a little bit more cautious could make your home less vulnerable to fire damages. Here are a few ways you can fireproof your home.

1) Use fire-resistant/redundant materials

Although there is a fine line between fire resistant and fire redundant materials, replacing your homes with either of these materials can reduce fire-risks by half. Fire resistant materials are designed to resist burning and withstand heat while fire redundant materials slow down the burning process. Such materials may include glass, asbestos, brick, and perlite. Replace roofs made of wood with tiles or concrete.

2) Build a fireproof barrier around your house

Having a house that is fireproof wouldn’t suffice alone. Surround your houses with less inflammable materials like gravel and concrete ground. All vegetation can be a good fuel for a fire. Get rid of excess. Have branches and twigs trimmed from time to time. Create a fireproof barrier around your house by using fire-resistant vegetation. Rockrose, ice-plant, aloe, cherry trees, pine, maple and bush honeysuckles are to name a few.

3) Install fire alarms

Have smoke alarms installed at every level of your house including the basement. Have them checked by a recognized testing laboratory. Make sure everyone at home has a basic understanding of handling a fire extinguisher. It might come in handy.

4) Declutter your surrounding

Get your homes and workplaces decluttered of all the things you don’t necessarily need. It’s easy for fires to spread through superfluous junk. Household items like disinfectant sprays and aerosol sprays are highly inflammable, and so are food items like dry powders. Take extra precaution especially in the kitchen.

5) Check for electrical wiring

Make sure the wiring of your home is safe and properly insulated. Repair faulty wires. Avoid plugging in too many devices/appliances at one point, it may cause an overload and lead to a short circuit breakout.

6) Have many exit doors

Design your homes to handle accidental fire breakouts. Have a good exit strategy planned to ease getting out in case of a fire breakout. This could include multiple exit doors and hallway.

7) Don't be careless

Often fire at homes can be caused by straight up carelessness. Be responsible when you smoke. Do not smoke when you are tired. It's easy to fall asleep while your cigarette is still burning only to wake up to the smell of burning fumes. So also, keep curtains and dish towels a safe distance away from stoves. Avoid wearing loose fitting and dangling clothes while near the stove.

Fire prevention isn't that complicated. It just involves a few easy but smart precautionary steps to avert a great disaster.

At Bio Cleanse Services, we deal with all kinds of fire damages. We can restore your home to perfection. Call us on 0427 411 789.

5 Reasons Why You Should Declutter

To declutter is “the” strategy for overcoming hoarding.

For compulsive hoarders, battling this behaviour is very much a step by step process. Along with the plan of action of physically moving the things and trashing them, a great deal of motivation and correction of thoughts goes into treating a hoarder.

Following are five reasons why you should declutter, in order to overcome hoarding.

1. Some hoarders claim that the clutter gives them “company” and shields them from the outside world. As much as comforting and disorienting this thought might sound, clutter is nothing but an emotional and physical baggage. Clutter clogs our mind with an excess of stimuli: visual, olfactory and tactile. Our senses work beyond normal and hence, it is a mental burden. 
2. Clutter causes embarrassment. Hoarders feel ashamed to show their house around to their friends and acquaintances, simply because the house is a mess. Once you declutter, you tend to ward off social isolation. This will help in building relationships that were lost because of this domestic mess. 
3. Clutter is not hygienic. Inhabiting with junk exposes you to multiple respiratory diseases. If the trash involves dead insects, faecal matter and decaying stuff, then the hoarder is bound to get various infections and diseases, putting personal health in a quandary. 
4. The best part of decluttering is finding things you thought you never had or bought. Hoarding results due to excessive accumulation of stuff that one doesn’t really need. Decluttering will help you unearth extra pair of shoes or unpaid bills and in some cases, money. The recyclable trash and items which you can put on sale (because you don’t need them) can stand the chance to earn you a few bucks. 
5. Decluttering will be the first of many changes. The immediate result is a sanitized personal space and decreased social isolation. Along the way, you will focus your attention on other things rather than accumulating trash, such as practicing yoga or building a new home theatre. 

Contact Bio Cleanse Pty Ltd for Hoarding Management Services.

20 Common Thoughts Inside a Hoarder’s Mind

Hoarding is not a mere accumulation of useless junk. 

It involves many thought processes with the decision to discard. These thought processes impinge on the hoarder’s decision-making process which ultimately results in the item not being discarded. 

Following are some common thoughts what a hoarder is likely to think.

1. “I’ll throw this away later…”
2. “I might need this at a future time…”
3. “I do not know where to store this. It doesn’t belong anywhere.”
4. “I have a feeling that I will clean up soon and that is when I will need some items I have collected.”
5. “This item might be valuable in the future and if I discard it, I will be at a loss.”
6. “I need to prepare myself for the next Great Depression!”
7. “These things offer me a sense of comfort. I am inaccessible to anyone. No one would dare come close to the pile, leave alone me. Hence I am protected.”
8. “These items are actually gifts from someone close. How can I even think of discarding them?”
9. “This reminds me of my lost loved one…it is perhaps the last piece of interaction I have between us two”
10. “My loved one, whom I lost years ago, liked these items. I believe s/he will come someday to collect it.”
11. “I collect these things so that I can possibly gift them to someone later.”
12. “I might be financially deprived to afford these items. Hence, I need to save them, even if they are small things like wrapping paper or ribbons.”
13. “I need to keep this item so that I remember something which I am likely to forget at a future date.”
14. “I feel relieved when I discard my stuff. However, once it’s done, I feel suddenly exposed. They are my safety pile.”
15. “Survival is about being prepared. Hence, I need to collect these items. I need to rely on myself and not on anybody”
16. “People can walk out of your lives. Things don’t.”
17. “Discarding these items makes me feel guilty about discarding it. Like it’s a criminal thing to do.”
18. “Right now, I do not have the time at my disposal to sort through these things. I will keep them here, so I can go through them, another day.”
19. “It gives me an excuse to get out of social obligation. I can always say I can’t go to a party because I have so much cleaning to do.”
20. “I believe in recycle and reuse.”

Contact Bio-Cleanse for Hoarding Cleanup and Management Services. 

Visit www.biocleanse.com.au for more information.