Walk the House

Ray and Pat had lived in their split-level for thirty-one years when Ray missed the last of three steps at 5:40 on a February morning, a laundry basket on his hip, the hall dark. He did not break anything. He sat on the hallway floor with a wrenched ankle while Pat asked a question he could not answer: how long has that step been a problem? The step had not changed. The bulb had been the same forty watts for years. What changed was Ray, a little at a time, in ways the house had always forgiven.

If you would rather find the problem step on a Saturday with a flashlight than on a floor in the dark, this book is the walk-through.

Most home safety advice is a list. A hundred and fifty items, a pile of free checklists, a sales pitch for a walk-in tub. A list tells you what could be wrong. It cannot tell you where to start, what to fix for free, what to buy, what to hire out, or what to ask. Walk the House gives you a system instead, built on four ideas.

The Four Checks. Light, Floor, Grip, and Reach. Four plain questions you can answer in a doorway with a flashlight and a tape measure, in every room of the house.

The Night Path. The route from your bed to your bathroom in the dark is where the real risk sits, and it comes first. A seven-question card shows you which spots on your own route are red.

The Carry Test. Walk the stairs and the hall with a laundry basket, a hot pot of water, or the groceries. Most hazards show up only when your hands are full.

The Spend Ladder. Free fixes first, then the hardware store, then a weekend with a helper, and only then the jobs you hire out. Most of what makes a house safer costs very little.

Inside this book:

• A room-by-room audit of the bathroom, bedroom, stairs, kitchen, living areas, laundry, basement, garage, and front entrance
• Green, yellow, and red scoring on a one-page sheet for each room, so you fix the right things in the right order
• How to choose and place grab bars, handrails, lighting, and rugs, and what a towel bar can never do
• Hands and hardware: lever handles, faucets, switches, and locks that work on a tired day
• A plan to get help fast: phone placement, alert devices, check-ins, lockboxes, and the one page responders need
• How to hire well: who does what, how to compare bids, red flags, and what to ask a contractor or an occupational therapist
• Questions for your health plan, your area agency on aging, your insurer, and a tax preparer, so you know who might help pay
• Two People, One House: walking the house with a partner, guests, and grandchildren, and making safe look like home
• The Yearly Walk, the Near-Miss Log, and the trigger events that call for an extra check
• When the house stops working, and the options in order from living on one floor to a move
• A two-weekend starter plan, seven fill-in sheets, and a resources list

This is a book about the house, written to the person who lives in it. It does not diagnose, assess fall risk, or give medical, legal, insurance, tax, or engineering advice. Where a topic crosses that line, it names the topic, tells you who to ask, and gives you the questions to bring.

Written for homeowners and long-term renters in their fifties, sixties, and seventies who plan to stay put. Plain language, short sections, large checklists you can tick off in pencil.

Book 5 of the Retirement Life Guides, from the author of the Home & Property Guides, the Outdoor Guides, and the Genealogy Guides.