Fascinating tools and machinery make garages, garden sheds, storage areas, and workshops dangerously appealing to children. But unless you're working on a special project with your child, keep these areas strictly off limits.

Most garages and workshops contain so many sharp power and hand tools, as well as poisons and fuels, that it is impossible to make them really safe, so your strategy should be to block entry but also to try to minimize risk if your child does get in.

Locking and opening the door

Despite the slight hassle, simply keep doors to the garage, workshop, garden shed, and similar areas securely locked. Hasps and locking garage doors can do the job.

If your garage has an automatic garage door, be sure that its operating switch is placed well out of your child's reach. Many kids discover the thrilling—and perilous—game of racing under the door before it closes.

As a partial safeguard, however, be sure the door operator has a pressure-sensitive device that will cause the door to stop or reverse direction when an object is encountered. But even this technology offers no iron-clad guarantee against at least minor injury to adventuresome kids.

If the garage has a roll-up garage door, be sure the channels between each panel have a rubber cushioning strip or are shaped to prevent finger pinching. For safety's sake, teach kids that the garage door is dangerous.

Organizing for safety

Store harmful objects as inaccessibly as you can. Keep work areas as clutter-free as possible. Put away tools after use. Always unplug power tools after use.

To stop pint-sized intruders, put child-safe latches on cabinets. To stop older kids who can get past the latches, you'll need real locks on cabinets storing dangerous materials.

Store flammable liquids in a safety can with a spring closure. Use a can with a UL or FM (Underwriters Laboratory or Factory Mutual) mark. Rags that have soaked up flammables should be disposed of in the outdoor trash can after hanging outdoors to dry. Install a smoke detector in the work area. Keep an A-B-C fire extinguisher near the garage or workshop exit.

To stop kids from overturning trash cans, secure them to a wall—and the lids to the cans—with heavy elastic cords.

With their handles resting on the ground, spring-clip garden tools to a bracket securely attached to a wall. 

TIP: An unsuspected hazard sometimes stored in garages is an unused refrigerator. Kids can climb in, close the door, become trapped, and, if not quickly discovered, suffocate. Lock or block off the door, or remove it entirely.

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