Background information
«You’re more likely to fall and die than win the lottery»
by Martin Jungfer
24 high-quality, affordable fall prevention products
4/10/2024
Translation: Katherine Martin
Every year, 125,000 people in Switzerland are injured by falls in their house or flat. With these products, you can reduce your risk of becoming one of them.
At home, there’s danger lurking around almost every corner. Even if you don’t see or suspect it. From stray cuddly toys to rucksacks lying on the hallway floor to slippery rugs, there are plenty of reasons why our homes aren’t as safe as we think they are. And that’s before you even think about climbing onto a wobbly stool to change the lightbulb in a ceiling lamp.
Here are 24 products that’ll make your home safer. The inspiration behind the list was my recent interview with Ursula Meier Köhler, a fall prevention expert from the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU).
So, without further ado, here are the products:
For staircases
If you have stairs in your apartment or house, you’ll know how quickly it can happen. Your attention straying for just a moment can be all it takes for you to miss a step, twist an ankle or, in the worst-case scenario, slip all the way down the stairs. In the past, people carpeted their stairways. These days, however, they’re usually covered with parquet or tiles, making them smooth as a result. Walking on them in socks alone presents a genuine hazard. Stick-on anti-slip tape can remedy this. As we’ve already covered, so can laying down small rugs.
Adhesive tape
EUR13,– EUR2,60/1m
tesa Anti-slip tape, non-slip adhesive tape for indoors and outdoors
25 mm, 5 m, 1 Piece
For baths and showers
When you’re taking a bath, there are two pivotal moments: getting in and getting out. Bathroom falls usually happen because people slip on their wet bathtubs – just ask my poor colleague Ramon!). If you want to boost bathtime safety, you can use anti-slip bath inserts. They’re also suitable for the shower. You should make sure bath- and shower mats are held firmly in place, for example with suction cups. Otherwise, they’ll turn into hazards too.
For floors
Rugs can make your house more homely and keep your feet nice and toasty (if you don’t have underfloor heating). However, they also increase the risk of an accident. Rugs that slide around on smooth parquet or tiled floors have caused many a nasty fall. Some rugs are already made to stay firmly in place. But not all of them. You should fit these with anti-slip protection ASAP.
If you also want to prevent the corners of a rug from sticking up, there are special pads you can stick to the bottom of it.
Let there be light
Navigating an unlit staircase while you’re sleepy? The thought alone is enough to make a fall prevention expert’s pulse race. If you have a power outlet near your staircase, you can place a night light there. If not, there are now battery-powered lights with motion sensors that only light up the staircase when you’re about to use it.
We also sell a wide range of recessed lights, but they require a power supply. If you’re about to do major renovation work or home improvements, you can think more broadly about staircase lighting.
For high places
Not everyone’s two metres tall and able to reach the top shelves in the kitchen cupboard. That’s why every household has climbing aids, i.e. stools, footstools and stepladders They’re usually a better choice than a dining chair or, heaven forbid, an office swivel chair.
Any product you’ll be standing on to reach high places should be able to do at least the following: hold your weight, be non-slip on the ground and have a non-slip surface.
To prevent trip hazards
It feels like a tenth of all the how-to articles online are dedicated to cable management. Some people really optimise their working-from-home setups to the extreme. For a safe home, however, all you need to do is keep cables from floor lamps, fans, TVs or speakers out of people’s way. You can hide them behind the baseboards (time-consuming), run them through cable ducts (fiddly) or bunch them up with cable ties (easy). You can also use cable boxes to store them.
The potential for the area just beside your coat rack to become a tripping hazard is often underestimated. Bags and rucksacks frequently end up on the floor there. There are also straps everywhere, just waiting for a foot to get caught in them. Jackets thrown on the floor are also incredibly easy to trip over. That’s why it’s worth having a strip of coat hooks so you can tidy away your stuff. And if you’re short on space, a few individual hooks on the wall will do the job.
You can find more fall prevention tips on the BFU website. It’s also published detailed advice on how to make your home fall-proof (in German).
Transparency note: the BFU has a legal mandate to prevent accidents in the areas of road traffic, sport, home and leisure. The BFU has no authority to issue instructions. It can only formulate recommendations that serve as a basis for decisions on safety measures in the non-occupational accident sector.How safe is your home? Do you have any safety tips? Let me and the Community know in the comments.
Header image: Shutterstock
Martin Jungfer
Head of Content
Martin.Jungfer@digitecgalaxus.chJournalist since 1997. Stopovers in Franconia (or the Franken region), Lake Constance, Obwalden, Nidwalden and Zurich. Father since 2014. Expert in editorial organisation and motivation. Focus on sustainability, home office tools, beautiful things for the home, creative toys and sports equipment.