Business owners/managers must do their duty; keep your building safe

A building owner’s duty to himself and visitors is to make sure that the building is as safe as possible. This means that the building owner needs to do his or her best to fall-proof their building. Whether it is an apartment, a home or a business environment, every building owner can do the following things to help keep people fall-free.

• Keep electrical cords and other ropes away from areas that have foot traffic. People often trip over electrical cords, and when they are put in heavily trafficked areas, the can easily become a hazard.
• If snow is about, throw some ice melter on the sidewalks and stairs outside. Ice is slippery, and falling down the stairs is never fun. In fact, many falls that turn lethal or serious happen in the winter due to this very reason.
• Add handrails to stairs. This reduces the chances of falling.
• Use skid-proof rugs. If you want a rug, make sure that it can grip the floor easily. Having a rug that’s easy to skid on is a quick way to end up with a person falling and hurting themselves.
• Clean up spills as soon as possible, and alert people to the hazard of wet floors. Depending on the substance, spills can be a health hazard for more than one reason, so it’s best to clean them up as soon as possible. Whether it’s a classic yellow “WET FLOOR sign or a verbal cue, letting people know of the hazard can help prevent a fall.
• Alert people to uneven ground and trip-prone doorsteps. Doorsteps and uneven stairs are two of the most common places for a person to trip. If you have places that are trip-prone, then make sure you give people notice of it.
• Keep hallways debris-free. Tripping on garbage is never a good thing, and the more debris an area has, the more likely it is that a fall will happen. In fact, just keeping a place tidy can greatly reduce the chances of a person getting injured.

Though slip and falls can happen anywhere, the truth is that we can all do our part to lower the chance of someone getting hurt from them with a little bit of common sense. If you or a friend have recently been hurt because of someone’s lack of care to clean up their building, call Team Law. We will be able to help you get the compensation you deserve.