People often get mail offering what appear to be free trips or heavily discounted vacations. How often are these scams? How should people approach these offers? What do you think?
I recently aired a story about pool fences. Here is another link that might be helpful.
www.americanfenceassociation.com
It also gave me the following information.
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FIVE STEPS PARENTS CAN TAKE TO PROTECT KIDS AROUND
SWIMMING POOLS WITH PROPER FENCING
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission,
each year, nationwide, more than 350 children under 5 years old drown in
residential swimming pools, and another 2,600 are injured. In some of the
nation's sunbelt states, drowning has been the leading cause of accidental
death in the home of children under 5 years old. The tragedy is that these
accidents usually occur in a pool owned by a family that didn’t install proper
fencing.
From the American Fence Association, here are five steps
to ensure that the fence around a swimming pool offers maximum safety
protection:
1) Use a self-closing
and self-latching gate
The fence installed around a pool should have a
self-latching gate. The latch should be
out of a child's reach. When the release mechanism of the self-latching
device is less than 54 inches from the bottom of the gate, the release
mechanism for the gate should be installed on the side facing the pool at least
3 inches below the top of the gate. Placing the release mechanism at this
height prevents a young child from reaching over the top of a gate and
releasing the latch. Also, the gate and barrier should have no opening greater
than 1/2 inch within 18 inches of the latch release mechanism. This prevents a
young child from reaching through the gate and releasing the latch.
2) Restrict
access through and over fence opening
It
is important that links, pickets, horizontal members or slats limit the ability
for a small child or pet to get over or through the fence. So take this into account when selecting a pool
fence design.
For
example, with chain link fencing, the mesh size should not exceed 1.25 inches
between the parallel sides of the mesh and have no opening larger than 1.75
inches.
Picket
fences should have spacing less than 4 inches between the pickets and have at
least 45 inches between the top and bottom horizontal members. If the space
between horizontal members is less than 45 inches, then the horizontal members
should be on the swimming pool side of the fence.
With ornamental fencing constructed in an open style, an
unobtrusive mesh can be added behind the pickets to prevent children and pets
from climbing through.
Keep in mind that whatever fence style you select, observers
should be able to see through the fence from any vantage point where there
would be monitoring for safety.
3)
Be sure the fence is high enough
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends that
pool fencing be at least 48 inches high to prevent young children from getting
over it into the pool. The 48 inches
measurement should be “above grade,” which means as measured from the
ground. This measurement should be the
minimum height of the fence at every point as measured on the side that faces
away from the pool.
For an aboveground pool, promote safety by building a fence
high enough to restrict access to the pool.
Also be sure to restrict access to the gate off the steps or ladder to
the pool.
4) Surround
the entire pool area
Just fencing off the yard doesn’t necessarily prevent
access to the pool. Consequently, the
pool requires fencing of its own.
According to the American
Academy of Pediatrics
Prevention of Injury Policy, four-sided fencing that isolates the pool from the
house decreases the number of pool immersion injuries among children by more
than 50 percent. A study in Phoenix
put that number as high as 90 percent. Consequently, in addition to a yard perimeter
fence, a fence isolating the pool from the home is recommended, especially for
homeowners with young children. Install a fence or other barrier completely
around the pool.
5) Hire a professional fence contractor
With so much at stake, only a trained,
professional fence contractor should be used to install fencing around a pool. Also,
it’s a good idea to have your fence contractor work with the pool
installer to ensure that all safety areas are covered.
The contractor you use
should not only do work that meets codes and standards, but should offer a
guarantee, negotiate ethically, use quality materials, have workers covered by
liability insurance, and offer recourse if you need additional work done.
You can find professional fence contractors near you
through the American Fence Association website,
www.americanfenceassociation.com
Do you know anyone who has used a service to conduct a background check on a nanny or babysitter?
If you check out Part 1, you'll see several of us had a good exchange about the transition to digital TV. I interviewed scooterwilliams, one of our bloggers, who was kind enough to allow me to talk to him about his rabbit ears and converter box. Now I'm looking for something different, something on the other end of the spectrum. I'm looking for someone who has gone all out with HDTV and will talk to me about how a digital signal changed their lives. Who is my next volunteer?
Do you know anyone whose picture ended up on one of those websites where people gossip about each other? I hear it can get pretty mean.
Do you know someone who uses rabbit ears or an antenna for their TV instead of cable or satellite?
Have any parents out there heard anything about vinyl shower curtains possibly having dangerous chemicals?
Are there any parents out there planning to install a pool fence and trying to decide if they should choose iron, mesh, vinyl or netting? Are you also trying to find the right company to install the fence?
With so many companies "going green," how do you know if the company is legitimately green or actually making unfounded claims simply to make a buck? Do you have any stories to tell?
Over the last year, I covered a couple of stories about an anti-terrorism exercise last October in Arizona. The federal government just released some new information on TOPOFF.
Homeland Security: DHS Risk-Based Grant Methodology Is Reasonable, But Current Version's Measure of Vulnerability is Limited. GAO-08-852, June 27.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-852
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08852high.pdf
