Thursday, July 23, 2009

More advice please-window security

And the saga continues. When Licensing Worker came for her first visit, she told me that I would need to get some sort of lock for my windows to keep a kid from accidentally falling out. An important thing since I live on the 4th floor.

So I went online and bought these nifty screw-type locks:



And it turned out that they don't fit on my windows. Okay, they were less than a dollar per lock, so not a huge deal.


I went back online and bought these window stoppers that are suction cups:

Just under six dollars each, so at this point I've spent a total of about $100 for my 14 windows. A small price to pay for making sure that a kid doesn't fall out of a window. And yes, I thought about how easy it is to take a suction cup off of a window. But almost every other lock I saw required screwing things into the window frame, which would be a neat trick to try with my metal window frames.
This is what I was thinking: these are to protect kids from accidental falls. Taking the lock off the window will require an intentional act (which for a small kid would also require climbing on something). If a kid is determined to fall out of the window, he or she will figure out how to open the window far enough to do so. Maybe I shouldn't have said that to Licensing Worker, but on minute 10 of the conversation yesterday in trying to convince her that my window stoppers are sufficient, I was losing my duck-like ability to let it all roll off my back. (Actually, I never had much of a duck-like ability to let it all roll off my back. Working on it.)
She is going to talk to her supervisor. In the meantime, I've come across another possibility: the "Burglabar." Just like the suction cups, though, or any other of these options, it can be de-activated so that the window can be opened all the way.
Here is what my jurisdictions rules require for foster homes:
[###] A foster home shall have and use protective devices on all
windows to prevent a child from falling out of the window.

...

[###] A foster home shall have and use safety locks on all windows and
doors on or above the second floor.
Given this, do you think I should go ahead and order the Burglabar, wait until I hear back from the Licensing Worker, write a treatise on why none of these are guaranteed methods of keeping a kid safe, or shoot an email to my friend the chief of staff of the agency?

1 comment:

  1. I vote email your friend! Every state is different. Locks didn't even come up in our licensing process, although the chances that any small kid could lift our huge 100-year-old wood-framed windows is pretty slim. You can get some help from people online, but it won't be worth anything unless the answer is something that will fly in your area. Sorry you're dealing with so much frustration.

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