Back in the early seventies, fire departments distributed big, red, oval window decals to families with children. They had the word "Tot Finder" on them and had a picture of a fireman carrying a child. Families put these red stickers in the windows of children's bedrooms so that fire fighters would know which windows lead to children's bedrooms so they'd know to check those rooms first, in case of fire.

Well our family put one such sticker on the bedroom my sister and I shared. But when we re-arranged the house, a year or so later, we couldn't get the sticker off that bedroom window. The adhesive was to strong. It never came off. So it was labeling a room that was not for children, and the children's room was left un labeled. I have no idea what the new family did when they bought that house.

To this day, here in the year 2000 I still see homes with red Tot Finder stickers in the window and I know full well the people who live there now are retired with grown children, or that they bought that house with the sticker already in the window and they couldn't get it off, either.

I'll bet the Fire Department knows to disregard them all now.

you're probably right, they probably do ignore them now.. my guess is that they check all the rooms anyways, and that knowing which room a kid might be in on the outside, is far different from knowing which room they might be in on the inside, I doubt they really did much in the first place.

I know there was one on my bedroom window back when I was a kid, but that when we got vinyl windows, we never bothered with it.