A leaning tower of paperbacks looks charming until a three-year-old decides to climb it. If you rent, you may have put off anchoring your bookcase because drilling the wall feels like a deposit-losing move. It does not have to be. There are several ways to make a tall bookcase stable in a rented home, and most of them take under half an hour. Work through the options below, starting with the fixings that hold best and finishing with the ones you can peel off before you hand back the keys.

Furniture tip-overs send thousands of children to hospital every year, and bookcases are a common culprit because they are tall, narrow and top-heavy once loaded. The good news is that a few pounds of hardware and twenty minutes of your time can remove almost all of the risk. You do not need to be a DIY expert, and you do not need to leave permanent scars on your landlord's walls.

Work out what you are dealing with first

Five minutes of measuring and poking saves a wasted trip to the DIY shop. You need to know three things.

• How top-heavy is it? A tall, narrow unit loaded with hardbacks at eye level is the worst case. A low, wide unit with heavy things at the bottom is far less likely to go over. A classic 80cm-wide, 200cm-tall bookcase filled with paperbacks on the top two shelves is an accident waiting to happen.
• What is the wall made of? Tap it. A hollow, drum-like sound usually means plasterboard over timber studs or over masonry with dabs of adhesive. A dull thud suggests solid brick or block. The two need completely different fixings. A stud finder or a strong magnet (to locate screws in the studs) can help you map the wall in a minute.
• What is nearby? A bed, a toy box, a windowsill or a radiator gives a child a step up. So does a stool left under the shelves. Walk the room at your child's eye level and look for anything that could become a climbing frame.

As a rough guide, anything taller than waist height deserves anchoring, particularly in a bedroom or playroom. If you are unsure about the wall, ask a handyman or your landlord rather than guessing. A single missed stud can mean the difference between a secure strap and a useless screw in crumbling plaster.

Anti-tip straps are still the best answer

A furniture restraint kit — sometimes sold as an anti-tip strap — is a short webbed strap or pair of metal brackets that joins the back of the bookcase to the wall. Kits cost very little and usually include the brackets and screws. For a wide unit, use two straps, one at each side. Think of it as a seatbelt for your shelves: it does not stop the bookcase from wobbling, but it stops it from falling on someone.

Fitting them so they actually work

1. Fix the wall bracket into a timber stud if there is one, or into masonry. In plasterboard, use a proper hollow-wall anchor rated for the load rather than the plug that came in the packet. A toggle bolt or a heavy-duty self-drilling anchor is a better choice than a simple plastic expansion plug.
2. Screw the furniture bracket into something solid: the top rail or a side panel, not a flimsy hardboard back. If the back is thin, drill through it into the frame behind. A bracket screwed only into the backing board will tear straight out under load.
3. Keep the strap short. It should allow a few centimetres of movement at most, so the unit cannot gather enough momentum to fall. If the strap is loose, the bookcase can tip far enough to throw items off the shelves before the strap goes taut.

Yes, this means small screw holes in your landlord's wall. Two per strap, plus a couple in the bookcase. Filled and touched up with matching paint, they are usually invisible at the end of a tenancy. If you are worried about matching the paint, take a flake of paint from a hidden corner to the DIY shop and get a tester pot mixed.

Tenancy agreements often require permission before you alter the property. Ask in writing, explain that it is a child safety measure, and keep the reply. Most landlords would rather approve two screw holes than deal with a claim.

When drilling really is not an option

Some landlords say no. Some walls — single-skin plasterboard, or a stud wall where the studs fall in the wrong place — make a clean fixing awkward. You still have choices, though none is quite as reliable as a screwed strap. Treat these as layers of protection rather than a single magic bullet.

• Heavy-duty removable adhesive mounts. Strips sold for hanging pictures are rated by weight, but a child swinging on a shelf is a very different load from a static frame. Use them as a supplement to good loading and sensible placement, never as the only thing holding a tall bookcase in a child's room. They also fail faster on dusty, fresh or textured paint and in warm rooms, so press-test them every month. If the strip feels loose, replace it immediately.
• Corner placement. Pushed tight into a corner, a bookcase can only tip forward, which halves the risk. Add a wedge or a piece of non-slip matting under the front edge to stop it sliding out from the corner.
• Join units together. Two bookcases strapped to each other behave like one wide, heavy piece of furniture, which is much harder to pull over. Use a metal plate or a short strap across the top of both units.
• Fix to the floor instead. A small bracket from the base of the bookcase into a floorboard beneath. Holes in a floor can be hidden under carpet or filled later. This works well if the floor is timber and you can access it from below, or if you are happy to lift a corner of carpet.
• Use an alcove. Shelving between two walls or in a chimney breast recess cannot fall sideways, and it is hard to pull forward from a tight space. Fill the gap at the sides with trim or foam pipe insulation to stop the unit shifting.

Load the shelves so they want to stay upright

Balance matters as much as fixings. A bookcase with heavy books at the bottom and lightweight items up top is far more stable. Put the heaviest volumes on the lowest shelf, and avoid storing anything heavy above the top third of the unit. If you have a tall unit, consider using the top shelf for lightweight decorations only, or leaving it empty. A bookcase that is bottom-heavy will resist a surprising amount of pulling and tugging before it even thinks about tipping.

Also think about how you arrange the shelves. Pulling a single large book from a tightly packed top shelf can shift the centre of gravity, especially if the bookcase is already on the light side. Leave a little breathing room between books so they slide out easily, but not so much that the shelves look empty and inviting to a climber. If you have open shelves, avoid stacking toys or enticing objects on the higher levels; a favourite teddy on the top shelf is an open invitation to climb.

Child-proof the shelves themselves

Anchoring the bookcase is only half the job. The contents can also be dangerous if they fall. Heavy books, glass ornaments and sharp-edged photo frames can all cause injury even if the unit itself stays upright. A few simple changes make the whole thing safer.

• Use doors or a cabinet. If your bookcase has glass or solid doors, add childproof latches. This stops small hands from pulling out armfuls of books and also prevents the shelves from being used as

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