Thanksgiving Home Safety Tips

This Thanksgiving, you plan to host friends, family, and their children for the annual feast. Your to-do list includes keeping your guests happy, staying on top of the mess, and cooking up a feast with all the fixings. You might feel overwhelmed and forget a few tasks that can put your guests in danger. Follow these tips to keep your family and home safe this Thanksgiving. 

Cooking a turkey is a science. This big bird can take up to 5 days to thaw so make sure you are prepared! Keep the turkey in the refrigerator until it is time to place in the oven. A turkey should reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees to ensure the meal is safe from bacteria. Once dinner is over, make sure to put all leftovers in the refrigerator. All leftovers must be refrigerated within two hours of serving. 

The number of kitchen fires triples on Thanksgiving Day. Take some simple precautions to make sure your home doesn’t become part of this statistic. “Stand by your pan” encourages homeowners to never leave food, especially grease, cooking on the stove top unattended. Keep all pets and children away from hot stoves and pans. Make sure all handles are facing inwards so they are not knocked over by guests. If you have a grease fire, do NOT use water or a fire extinguisher to put it out. Turn off the heat source, cover the flames with a pot or pan if possible, and dump baking soda and/or salt on the flames. 

Clogged drains can be expensive, time consuming, and stinky for you and your guests! Once a drain is clogged, homeowners can either call a plumber or run to the store for a bottle of Drano. Proper drain maintenance can avoid clogs, here are a few easy steps! 

1.     Lift any pop-up stoppers in sinks, remove gunk that has collected around the stopper and place it in the trash. Rinse the stopper and place it back in the drain.

2.     Remove the shower drain and use a wire, a croquet hook, or a Zip-it to remove hair and other waste. Place the waste in the trash and rinse with hot water.

3.     Grind up a combination of ice and salt in your garbage disposal. This will help remove grease.  Once finished, rinse with cold water and grind up half a lemon or lime to leave it smelling fresh and clean.

Alaska Management Group provides management services and solutions as well as association-specific websites that can help companies share information and communicate effectively. Complete our management request form to find out how Alaska Management Group can assist you in maintaining the value and comfort of your home association. 

Time Management Tips for Community Association Managers

A community association manager takes on many roles. They deal with homeowners on a 24/7 basis, ensuring a community is properly maintained, disputes are handled and all financial matters are in order. With a long to-do list, it’s easy to see why the role of community association manager can become overwhelming. Here are some time saving tips and efficient tricks that will help you manage your community more efficiently. 

Organize Emails – It’s easy to get lost in emails but a community association manager’s main focus should be spending face-to-face time in the community. A great way to be email efficient is by having responses already written for common questions. This way you can copy and paste a reply rather than rewriting the response each time. If you manage several communities and have a hard time keeping track, organize your inbox with category tabs and folders.

Utilize Telecommunication Technology – Voicemail to email technology allows you to stay on top of incoming calls by receiving email and text notifications for missed calls. You have the ability listen to the voicemail as an audio file or read the message in an email. It’s a great tool for days when you are out of the office.

Go Paperless – Do you struggle to keep track of paperwork? Going paperless can help you save money and keep track of information more efficiently. This way you are able to immediately pull up copies of expenses, contracts, and homeowner information with the click of a button. The downside of going paperless is not every individual (specifically those over the age of 65) has access to modern technology. However, you can offer your community members the option for print mail or email.

Management Technology – New management tools can allow you to access all of the information you need across a variety of devices including smartphone and laptop. This means no more spreadsheets of homeowner information and no more sifting through cabinets for financial records. If you have a question from a homeowner, you can easily access the information at your fingertips.

At Alaska Management Group, we utilize the best industry technology and personalized service to assist your association with project oversight. We provide association specific websites that allow your residents to have access to their dues statements, association rules and documents. To learn more about what Alaska Management Group can do for you, contact our team today!