Just an unrelated warning I got today on house fires:

Marg CDN

Well-known member
House fires--please read!!!!!

This email was received from a friend who is in the property insurance business. It is well worth reading. This is one of those e-mails that if you don't send it, rest assured that someone on your list will suffer for not reading it. The original message was written by a lady whose brother and sister-in-law recently learned a hard lesson. Their house burned down... there is nothing left but ashes. They have good insurance so the house 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 the sister-in-law what she had plugged into the electrical outlet in the master bath. She listed the normal things... curling iron, blow dryer, etc. He kept saying to her, 'No, this would be something that would disintegrate at high temperatures'. Then she remembered she had a Glade Plug-In plugged in the bathroom outlet.

The investigator had one of those 'Aha' moments. He said that was the cause of the fire. He said he has seen more house fires started with the plug-in type room fresheners than anything else. He said the plastic they are made from is THIN. 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.

They 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 back 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 places that have been burned down due to them.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO ALL THE PEOPLE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK. NOT ONLY COULD IT SAVE SOMEONE'S HOUSE, BUT IT COULD SAVE SOMEONE'S LIFE!!!

 
Very Interesting....I used a couple somtime ago and got irritated...

as they seemed to turn themselves off and on so I got rid of them! Never thought that having them could result in a fire....One would think that they are perfectly safe to use.

 
In general, I'm just getting a little nervous about the cheap quality of elect. items we use now. I

am reluctant to leave a battery charger plugged in overnight, for example.

I don't know how true this story is but seems like a good plan to me.

 
Snopes.com states this is not true....

whenever I get one of these doom and gloom emails, I now check it with Snopes.com

www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/glade.asp

 
When I read that, I interpretted it as being inconclusive, with fire officials still

recommending against using these gadgets.

I don't believe too much of what I read, either way, and am always probably too overly cautious.

I still wonder about the purported liver disease in dogs who frequented floors washed with Swiffer cleaning fluid. I realize that major coroporations have a lot to lose when these claims start to fly, and lots more power than most of us realize, hence the skepticism.

 
I received this a couple of months ago. I also checked with snopes and reported my findings

to the friend who sent it to me. Her son, who is the fire chief, called me and said that he didn't care what snopes said. He had personally seen this happen.

I'm still not sure but I don't use plug ins

 
I agree, around Christmas time, a local family's house was badly damaged

by fire and they attributed it to the extension cord that they had bought in a local dollar store. Who ever thinks to check to see if it's UL approved, or is the seal is in place? Yeow.

 
I'm a household safety zealot,Toasters that are left plugged in

are a leading cause of house fires, according to a fire chief that I heard speak years ago. Toasters and toaster ovens that are left plugged in drive me crazy. As a house guest years ago, while cleaning the kitchen, I unplugged the toaster oven, which got me in trouble the next day when the french bread wasn't ready for dinner!

 
Amen ~ I hear you ~ drives me 100% crazy too~ I don't keep those appliances on the counter for that

reason ~ they have to be unplugged and put away.

 
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