Safety is incredibly important to me, given that I have two daughters. My youngest is autistic, and keeping her safe is a little bit more of a challenge. If she wants to go outside, she doesn’t think about it being a bad idea; she also won’t stay away from roads. All kinds of things can happen to her if I’m not careful. This is common with autistic children, and there are many ways to help keep autistic children from wandering unsupervised and putting themselves in harm’s way. Hopefully, once their play room is set up with her sensory activities it will decrease the desire she has to wander away.
One of the best things about earthbag houses are they are resistant to all natural disasters – hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and fire. While a fire could be started inside somehow (faulty wiring, a candle tipping over, etc. etc.) a grass fire would not harm the structure itself.
Once my house is finished, it will have numerous exterior doors and windows; all these doors are great for cross ventilation, but not so great when you have a six-year-old that needs to be contained so she doesn’t get hurt. Over time, I will switch regular doorknobs for fingerprint doorknobs; this way I don’t have to worry about getting locked out while the girls are inside, and the girls won’t accidentally lock themselves out. On the inside of the doors, I will be putting chains high enough that my youngest can’t reach, but my oldest can. My oldest is a little mommy, and if I tell her to take her sister and get out of the house, she will do it. The doors of the front and back screened in porches will also have chains on the inside, so that when I open the front and back doors I can still get cross ventilation but do not have to worry about her getting off the porch and messing with things she shouldn’t be messing with (even if it’s something as simple as a puddle of water from a recent rain).
The courtyards on either side of the house will have half walls that Alex can’t climb over, which will also act as buttresses and stability for the towers. I won’t worry so much about her getting out of the doors to these courtyards, since she won’t be able to get over the wall. These techniques will also help keep out robbers. As far as the doors to the greenhouse and atrium go, since they have no access to the outside of the house, I will not worry so much about her getting out there unless it is cold or raining out. At that point I will want to make sure I have some way of keeping her out of the atrium if she does wander out there.
I plan on having a small pond in the atrium (this will act as a backup water tank, and will run water between the pond and the greenhouse), and Alex LOVES water. It will be very important to get both girls some swimming lessons, especially considering that I’d like to build an earthbag pool in the future.
We also have a german shepard named Nicky; we don’t know how old she is exactly, as an old co-worker of mine found her on his property hanging out with his dogs. I plan on having her trained as a service dog for Alex (my youngest), as well as for safety. Most robbers are deterred from entering a home where there is a big dog barking and growling at them. Her service dog training will basically give me another pair of eyes on Alex, and help keep her from going outside when she shouldn’t. If she does manage to escape, Nicky will be able to alert me to that so I can go after Alex before she goes missing. I may also get a second dog at some point down the road, and have it trained as well.
While I have been urged many times over the years, being a single mom, to get a gun this is something I refuse to do. With Alex and her disadvantages, I do not trust having a gun in the house. I’m not going to put her in harm’s way like that. I am not comfortable around guns, and would have to be comfortable with them before I ever seriously thought about bringing one into the house. This is not something I am likely to do anytime soon.
While the backyard will eventually have a high fence, the gates will have locks on them. This way we can get in and out as needed, but Alex won’t be able to get out – and no one else, like robbers, will be able to open the gate.
Eventually I plan on adding a home security system; while this will alert me whenever Alex goes outside without supervision or permission, it will also alert me to my eldest daughter’s whereabouts. In a little under three years Ariel will be a teenager, and we all know what THAT means! If she’s anything like I was as a teenager (even with the freedoms that my mother gave me), there will be times when she sneaks out. I’d like to counter that as well as keeping Alex from harm.
Luckily Alex tends to sleep through the night, she doesn’t wake up and explore. They do have beds designed to contain an autistic child throughout the night and keep them from wandering, but this won’t be an issue with Alex. Pretty much the only times she wakes up during the night are if something’s wrong, like she had a bad dream or is sick. At those times she tracks me down, or her sister does, wherever I may be in the house.
Each tower will have dutch doors that Alex can’t climb over; this way, I can open the top half but lock the bottom half so that she can’t get into those towers. This will help keep her from wandering into different areas unsupervised.
I will be installing motion sensor floodlights in multiple locations: the garage/driveway, front porch, each side courtyard and the back porch. This way, if someone walks near one of the exterior doors, the light coming on will direct my (and my dog’s) attention to that area. The windows will all have screens and locks on them. Screens on the windows will delay a robber whose trying to get in; even if it’s only a few seconds delay while they cut or otherwise remove the screen, every second counts in that type of situation. It is a few more seconds to where I can get to my kids and get them out of the house and to safety.
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