Spring cleaning risky: ACC

Hawke's Bay handyman Phil Lincoln advised those going about their own spring cleaning to be careful and take their time. Photo / Thinkstock

About 275 Hawke's Bay people hurt themselves while spring cleaning last year, ACC figures show.

This was revealed by ACC claims including the words "clean", "gutter", "ladder" or "broom".

Those claims cost $252,339 last year.

ACC senior media adviser Stephanie Melville said ACC sourced the data by searching accident descriptions for the key words. The level of detail provided for accident descriptions could vary greatly and there were likely to be related claims that had not been captured, she said.

The most common spring cleaning injuries were related to loss of balance and the most common injury diagnosis was soft tissue damage.

"In terms of staying injury free when spring cleaning, I personally would recommend paying a team of professionals to do it for you, while you get together with friends and enjoy a long overdue lunch with maybe a little shoe shopping afterwards followed by wine and nibbles to wrap up the afternoon.

"This way the only thing that'll hurt is getting the credit card bill."

Ms Melville said about 700,000 injuries happened in or around the home each year.

That represented well over a third of the roughly 1.7 million claims ACC received each year.

Hawke's Bay handyman Phil Lincoln advised those going about their own spring cleaning to be careful and take their time.

"You don't have to bust a gut to do it. You take your time and do it methodically and safely."

His work included fencing, decking, interior and exterior painting and kitchen and bathroom jobs.

He said periodically people would call him after beginning a job then realising they needed to get a professional in.

That used to be a regular occurrence but didn't happen very much now as people were more wary. Occasionally he'd get called in to help assemble a cheap garden set. In most cases, a more expensive set would have been easier to assemble, he said. Thankfully, Mr Lincoln didn't hear from many people who had been injured trying to carry out jobs before calling him.