Safety Warning

Agencies and other headaches, keys and cleaners, running costs and contracts...in short, all the things we spend so much of our time doing behind the scenes.<br>
paule133
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Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:37 pm
Location: Suffolk, UK
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Safety Warning

Post by paule133 »

I just received this in an email and it really frightened me!

The original message was written by a lady whose brother and his wife learned a hard lesson this past week.

Their house burned down... nothing left but ashes. They have good insurance so the home will be replaced and most of the contents. That is the good news. However, they were sick when they found out the cause of the fire.

The insurance investigator sifted through the ashes for several hours. He had the cause of the fire traced to the master bathroom. He asked her sister-in-law what she had plugged in the bathroom. She listed the normal things... curling iron, blow dryer. He kept saying to her, "No, this would be something that would disintegrate at high temperatures". Then her sister-in-law remembered she had a Glade Plug-In in the bathroom.

The investigator had one of those "Aha" moments. He said that was the cause of the fire. He said he has seen more home fires started with the plug-in type room fresheners than anything else. He said the plastic they are made from is a THIN plastic. He also said that in every case there was nothing left to prove that it even existed. When the investigator looked in the wall plug, the two prongs left from the plug-in were still in there.

Her sister-in-law had one of the plug-ins that had a small night-light built in it. She said she had noticed that the light would dim and then finally go out. She would walk in to the bathroom a few hours later, and the light would be back on again. The investigator said that the unit was getting too hot, and would dim and go out rather than just blow the light bulb. Once it cooled down it would come on. That is a warning sign. The investigator said he personally wouldn't have any type of plug in fragrance device anywhere in his house. He has seen too many homes that have been burnt down due to them.

I hope this warning isn't too late for you...
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Alan Knighting
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Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:26 am
Location: Monflanquin, Lot-et-Garonne, France

Post by Alan Knighting »

Christ on a bike! Such a little apparently innocuous thing like that can burn your house down? It makes one wonder about all those voltage converters everybody uses. Could they do the same thing?

By the way, clicking on your Website takes me to EasySpace not to your Lyndhurst cottage page. Why is that?
Christine Kenyon
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Location: Glenridding, Ullswater Valley, Lake District, UK
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Post by Christine Kenyon »

Hello Paule133 and welcome! Thank you for sharing this experience. Could be a good lesson learnt the easy way! It's not the sort of thing that Glade tend to include in their TV advertising!

Cheers

Christine
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Sue Dyer
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Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 2:26 pm
Location: Belford, Northumberland

Post by Sue Dyer »

Being a cynic I first thought "urban myth" ??? and checked it out on THE authority - www.snopes.com. However, the status of this is "undetermined" http://www.snopes.com/toxins/glade.asp and they repeat that some fire officers discourage the use. I do use them but only when I am around, wouldn't go out and leave one plugged in/switched on.

Have a good look around Snopes site, there's some great ones and some very gory photo's too....
Maisy
Posts: 46
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 12:05 pm
Location: Calvados France

Post by Maisy »

Following on from this Safety Warning, I request that the TV is unplugged every night. My friend nearly lost her home, she certainly lost all the contents of her home, by leaving tv plugged in. I saw the burnt remains in the floorboards where the tv once sat.........This is more applicable if you have an older TV.
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