Life Safety Inspection: Preparing Our Home

Our Life Safety Inspection is done! I am so relieved that this section of our license is done and we can check that one off of our list of to- do's. Everyone told me that it wasn't necessary to scrub our house in preparation for this. People who know me well will tell you that isn't who I am. I called the day before our inspection "Home Economics" day for the kids. We cleaned... for 8 hours. The house was sparkling. Then our case worker called and said she needed to reschedule for the next week. Such is life and this journey.

When you start this journey, they give you a packet, actually a couple, long packets of things that they will look for in this inspection. Some of them make perfect sense to me. No gaping holes in the walls and medicines and chemicals need to be locked up. Guns and ammo need to be separated and locked away. The house can't smell or be excessively dirty. The list that each family makes of the items that pertain to their family and need to be done must look drastically different. For us, that list specifically included:

1. Spa Fence. Any body of water 18" or deeper has to have a fence around it. We have a spa for my husband. He uses it for therapeutic purposes due to his chronic illness. Even though our spa has a hard, locking cover, it needed to have a fence and gate put around it. 
2. Gun Storage. We needed a second safe since guns must be trigger locked and then placed in a safe. Ammunition must be placed in a second safe and locked up. 
3. Locked Storage. We had to lock up medicines, chemicals and cleaning products, including essential oils. For some things, we added magnetic locks to the cabinets and relocated things all to those areas. For some things, we bought these plastic tubs that you can put padlocks on. One of the best tips I got from another foster mom was to buy from amazon a package of locks that all lock to the same key. We also had to lock up my husband's Humira shots in the fridge inside a box. 
4. Nursery items. We needed to have AT LEAST a crib or some sort of bed on hand and car seats appropriate for whatever age we are licensing for. We are licensing for 0-4 so we needed both an infant and toddler seat. For us, this also involved moving our girls in together and switching some of their beds out and moving them around. 
5. Safety Items. Plugs in the outlets, carbon monoxide detectors, fire extinguishers and first aid kits of each floor, locks on certain windows...