TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) -- The holiday season can seem magical, but if you have small kids or pets, it's important to know the dangers lurking within all that celebrating. In this Angie's List report, how to disaster-proof your home for the holidays.
When decking the halls, don't forget to child and pet-proof them too. Start with your Christmas tree, which can be the biggest danger of the season.
"If you have small children or pets it could be a really good idea to anchor your tree. Otherwise, you might walk into the room and find your tree is toppled over. You can do that really easily with a little hook and some twine connected to the ceiling or the wall behind the tree," said Angie Hicks of Angie's List.
For pets, make electrical cords as unappetizing as possible.
"I'd keep it unplugged when you can, but otherwise just put some kind of a bitter tasting product on the exposed wires," said veterinarian Dr. Tom Buchanan."The area of wire that you have to expose use a little bit of lemon juice or bitter apple, something on there just to dissuade them."
Take special care to avoid decorations that are sharp or breakable and avoid trimmings that resemble candy or food. Table runners usually hang at the perfect height for yanking or climbing, so you may want to skip those, along with certain holiday plants, which can cause health problems for pets.
"Lilies are something that people often don't think about, but lily toxicity is actually one of the more common ones we see and they're often around Christmas time. And so, they can cause kidney failure and acute kidney failure. We just had a cat in here within the last month that had that. So, be real watchful for that," said Dr. Tom Buchanan.
And when you're done decorating, it's always a good idea to double check your disaster-proofing efforts.
"You know getting down on your hands and knees. Kinda seeing things from their perspective. When a baby starts crawling you'd be surprised what you might see that could be dangerous to them," said child safety expert Kent McCool.
Holly berries and mistletoe can also be toxic to dogs and cats. While poinsettia plants have a bad rap, they're only mildly toxic.
Remember you can catch the latest Angie's List report every Tuesday morning on WTXL Sunrise.
