[stephandjon]

DH and I have completed all the personal visits for the homestudy and all we have left is the visit to our home. What will they look for? I am not too concerned about it but would like to be prepared I suppose.

What about garages? What about pets? LOL I mean we don't have vicious dogs but our lab likes to jump a little because he is still a puppy but he stays in the back yard.

Thank you for any advice you can provide!!

[DianeS]

The answer to this one seems to really vary. Some workers seem to not care about anything other than making sure the house exists. Others check literally everything. I'll type out the common ones I remember hearing social workers do the most:

Make sure there is electricity.
Make sure there is hot water, but the water heater is at 120 degrees or under (at least I think it's 120).
Make sure there is food in the fridge.
Make sure the child's bedroom counts as a bedroom (square footage, door, window, maybe closet if required in your area).
Make sure your pets are legal (not forbidden breeds or types, all required shots like rabies).
Smoke detectors (and maybe carbon monoxide detectors).
Fire extinguishers.
Make sure there is no evidence of additional people living in the house that you didn't mention before.
Make sure there is no body of water -pond, pool, river, etc - a child could reach unattended (that means fences or whatever are in their proper places).
And generally make sure that there are no safety issues that she notices (exposed wiring for example).

And remember, if you are missing something that the worker needs you to have (like if you don't have enough smoke detectors), she'll tell you what it is, and come back later to verify that you got it. That happens all the time and isn't a problem.

Hope that helps!

[NicoleP80]

You are going to worry for nothing It is so easy and simple.

Our caseworker just wanted a general tour of the house. He walked with us all over and saw bedrooms, living rooms, bathrooms, etc. He did not inspect anything.

Your house should be clean, but looked lived in. They do not want to see a catalog clean rooms, they want to see a home where people reside.

He looked at the room we use now for baby. It wasnt even clean in there. It was previous a "catch all" for everything. There was no walking space in there, at all.

We have two labs. We let them meet our caseworker and we put them outside. Our labs are wild and love attention and LOVE new people...

Don't worry! As long as the house is safe and picked up you are going to do fine. One thing we made sure we had a was smoke detector in every room Minus bathrooms!

[stephandjon]

Thank you so much to you both! I guess I just didn't know what to expect because it is the world of the unknown for us.

Our house is new and very clean so I feel really good about the visit now. Also, our dogs are so sweet just get a little excited so nothing to worry about.

I am not sure why I was so worried about this whole homestudy business. I guess because it could be something that kept us from adopting.

The visit is on Tuesday so I will keep everyone posted!

[Bunnygirl]

I was a nervous wreck before our home visit -- my husband & I scrubbed the place down from top to bottom. I even waxed the floors (and the stairs; take my advice -- never, EVER wax stairs), hid all the junk food and any wine or beer & strategically placed healthy things like fresh fruit on the kitchen counter & dining room table.

Once the sw got there though, she was really nice and said that everyone is nervous about the home visits but that it's rare to be turned down because of one (she said that they can generally tell at the initial interview whether you're going to be approved or not) and that the social workers really aren't there to check for dust mice under the bed or anything. The only thing she told us that we needed to do was to get additional fire extinguishers (she didn't come back to check, she just told us to do it).

[DannieAS]

You will be fine. I was drop dead nervous, but my cw took a tour, looked at the room of the future child, went into every room and space and garage (I had a different visit from the licensing people for safety and they checked everything....hot water needed to be between 105 and 120, baby gates for stairs depending on age desired, chemicals up in locked cabinet or high enough, knives too, first aid kit, medicines locked up in a medicine cabinet or high up)

My house is generally clean because I live by myself with my dog, so didn't know how to make it look more "lived-in" because I naturally clean and pick up after myself lol....but it did give me some self-pride when going over my homestudy report with my cw that she stated that I have an immaculate garage That was awesome, my mother would be proud! LOL!!!! FWIW, they don't look do a white glove test.

I find my relatives are worse....they've even looked in my shower to see if it was clean or not once when they came to visit....so this was a piece of cake compared to some aunts and uncles I have.

[SoBayMama]

I was SO nervous before our visit. Our worker checked for smoke detectors, made sure we had the room ready for kids (beds/closet/drawer space) made sure the toilets flushed and made sure that we had locks on cabinets that contained medicines or chemicals.

I had scrubbed every square inch of the house. I moved the beds so I could thoroughly clean underneath them. I completely cleaned out the closet. She briefly glanced in our room, and said, "That's your space, I just need to make sure you don't have extra beds or anything in there."

I wanted to say, "Please look under my bed, it's really clean!" or "Why don't you take a look in the closet, you'll be so impressed!"

I got pretty worked up for nothing. It was a piece of cake.

[peregrinerose]

Contact the agency you are working with and ask them for a copy of their checklist. That's what we did, so we did our own walk-through first to ensure that everything was met. I think the only thing we needed to do was get a new fire extinguisher.

[stephandjon]

Thank you all for your guidance and support! Tomorrow is the day! Our house looks great, all our paperwork is in, we received our medical referrals...I think all is completed except for the actual visit. I hope she will be able to tell us tomorrow that we passed then I can breathe a sigh of relief!!

Can't believe it but our profiles are almost complete and will be sent to the agency for approval this week. With an approved homestudy, then approved profile....we will be ready to be active.

Then the real wait begins!!

[stephandjon]

We had our home visit today! Piece of cake. She didn't even go into the garage, open up any cabinets, anything. She asked for a tour of the house and counted the number of smoke detectors. 6 by the way! I didn't even know I had 6 smoke detectors. Anyway...After the visit was over I asked her when we will know if we passed or not. She said she already did...she said we passed.

I guess I didn't expect a different outcome but I was so nervous. She is going to write up the report and send it to us to review for accuracy. Then, she will send two approved copies to us. I am so thankful!! We are soooo close to being active!!

[loveajax]

Awesome news, Steph!! Good luck to you!