Millions of homes across the United States have furniture anchors installed by well-meaning parents who were urged to do so to prevent tip-over accidents that have been blamed in 592 reported deaths, mostly of children, from 2000 to 2021.
Now, under a new nationwide recall, parents are being urged to check those wall anchors for a possible hidden hazard.
The anchor kits — a plastic zip tie, two brackets and two screws — were included with millions of clothing storage units like dressers, armoires and chests that were sold under a variety of brand names since 2019.
But it turns out the anchors can become brittle or snap, which poses an unseen hazard, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has issued the recall in cooperation with 31 furniture makers.
The recall is based on two reports of anchors breaking and an assessment that the plastic can deteriorate over time.
Consumers can apply for new anchors at no cost by going online to alliance4safety.org or by calling (855) 416-7370. No receipt is needed.
Anchor kits were sold with millions of dressers, chests and other clothing storage units.
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Defective plastic anchors are the sort of thing that keeps moms like Kimberly Amato and Lisa Siefert awake at night. They’re members of Parents Against Tip-Overs, a group formed in 2018 to get the word out about the hundreds of deaths and injuries from falling furniture and TVs.
According to a CPSC report last year, 81% of the tip-over deaths involved children, and 15% were seniors.
The commission estimates that about 19,400 injuries requiring an emergency room visit occur each year as a result of tip-over accidents.
“There are probably thousands of near-misses,” says Amato, a Massachusetts mom whose daughter Meghan, a twin, was 3 years old in December 2004 when her bedroom dresser toppled, suffocating her.
Kimberly Amato and her daughter Meghan about a month before Meghan died. She was 3 years old.
Provided
Amato says Meghan, who had her own bedroom, apparently got out of bed in the middle of the night. The girl’s parents think she tried to climb on the drawers of her dresser. The next morning, her father went to wake her and found her under the dresser, which had fallen onto her, trapping her against the carpeted floor.
The dresser that tipped over and killed Meghan.
Provided
Lisa Siefert of Barrington Hills says parents who did their best to child-proof their furniture will now be faced with having to replace the recalled anchors. Her 2-year-old son Shane died during naptime in 2011 when he apparently climbed on his dresser, and it fell onto him. Siefert created Shane’s Foundation to try to educate parents.
“Honoring Shane with working towards no tip-over injuries or deaths is my way of keeping him always around,” she says.
Lisa Siefert of Barrington Hills holds a photo of her son Shane, who was 2 when he died in a tip-over accident.
Stephanie Zimmermann / Sun-Times
The CPSC has tried to spread the word, including with a video showing real-life tip-over accidents caught on home video.
Parents Against Tip-Overs notched a significant victory in 2022 with the passage of the federal Stop Tip-Overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth Act, called, for short, the STURDY Act. That law, championed by U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, took effect in September and made stability requirements mandatory for clothing storage furniture 27 inches and taller. Each piece also must include an anchor kit.
The new stability requirements don’t apply, though, to furniture manufactured before Sept. 1, 2023, which means that potentially unstable units are likely to still be available for sale in stores and online.
Consumers should check a manufacturer’s label and make sure the furniture piece wasn’t constructed before the new stability requirements took effect, says Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids In Danger, a Chicago nonprofit focused on child product safety.
Parents also should make sure that TVs, wall units and other furniture is safely anchored, Cowles says.
Tip-over accidents can happen suddenly. A child can pull out drawers and use them as steps — perhaps to reach an object — and the furniture can topple over, crushing or pinning them. If the floor is carpeted, parents may not hear anything. Even relatively short dressers can tip over.
Amato says the anchor kit issue is especially troubling because it affects people who did the right thing by anchoring their dressers to the wall. Using an anchor is still the best thing to do — but obviously the anchors themselves need to be strong, she says.
She tells parents to look for name-brand anchors made of metal, not thin plastic or adhesives.
Her next goal is to get the now-voluntary standard for furniture anchors upgraded to a mandatory standard, with stronger materials, that’s based on real-world use.
“They’re not all created equal,” Amato says of the anchor kits.