The Veritas Real Estate Group, Inc.

Florida is a terrific place to live but you must be careful if you have small children or pets. Many of the homes here have pools or they are situated on lakes or canals. Florida leads the nation in the number of annual  drownings and Broward County has the most drownings in Florida. We pay a price for being known as the "Venice of the Americas".

If you have a pool it is recommended that you install a pool safety fence that will prevent a toddler from slipping outside and falling in the pool. Do an internet search for "pool safety fence" and you should come up with a lot of links.

It is also recommended that children start taking swimming lessons at a very young age so that they can help protect themselves if they accidently fall in. You can do an internet search for "infant swimming lessons" and get a pageful of links.

In addition to the concerns we share for the children, many of our pets are prone to seizures and if they are outside they can also fall into the ungated pool during a seizure and drown. Likewise, if there are no stairs to help them climb out they could tread water for hours if you are not home and drown from exhaustion. You can search the internet for "pool pet stairs" to get links to products that you can buy to help our hairy little friends.

So enjoy the warm weather and cool off in the pool but take simple precautions to keep all the members of your family safe.