GREENSBORO, N.C. — For years now, 2 Wants To Know has been showing you the danger of furniture tip-overs and how to keep it from happening. Anchoring your furniture to the wall is the solution. Nearly 200 children have been killed by furniture tip-overs in the last two decades.
Now, there's a new warning about some of those anchoring straps. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is recalling millions of straps made by New Age Industries. These straps are plastic and can become brittle or break, allowing dressers or other furniture units anchored to the wall to in fact, tip over. These restraint kits were mostly sold at furniture stores from 2019 on. The names of the stores include names you know well in NC, like Ashley Furniture, Bassett, Kincaid, and Hooker.
The CPSC says: Consumers should immediately check if their clothing storage unit has a date of manufacture sticker or stamp of November 2019 or later. If so, and if the tip kit is made of plastic, consumers should contact Alliance4Safety for a free replacement tip kit. Keep children away from the unit while waiting for a replacement tip kit.
Alliance4Safety toll-free at 855-416-7370 anytime or online at www.alliance4safety.org/new-age-recall or www.alliance4safety.org and click on “New Age Recall Information” for more information.
If you don't have your furniture anchored down, listen to what this parent has to say.
"Both of my toddlers go after the TV. They pull on it. They yank on it. It's very scary as a parent that it might fall over on them. Anchoring our TV to the cabinet gives my husband and me peace of mind that our kids aren't going to climb up and knock the TV onto themselves," said Alex Flowers.
"You can mount your TV to a wall or anchor it to a media console if it's substantial enough. Just remember that any furniture should also be anchored to the wall," said Jim Wilcox of Consumer Reports.
The CPSC has many resources for families as they try to figure out what is best for them when it comes to how to make their furniture safe. The main page is called Anchor It.