Is your furniture secured to the wall?

[bunnymendelbaum]

There is a link on some other boards to a really gut-wrenching blog and it got me thinking about my own house.

We are good and strapped to the wall except in the new nursery. Those 2 dressers could tip so easily! I'm resisting the urge to get up right now and strap them to the wall. I'm doing it first thing in the morning.

Anyone recommend wall straps? I might just head to babies r us (ugh) because I have a merch credit there.

[stephm0188]

I know. I am sitting her sick to my stomach. I KNOW BETTER! Everything in our old house was strapped, but after we moved twice within a year, it just never got done. My kid isn't a climber. But I'm sitting here horrified because I can not even count how many times I've walked into his room and found all the drawers open.

I want to throw up.

[bunnymendelbaum]

I know!!! I feel sick.
The new nursery dressers are older and have tall thin legs. Such a freaking tip hazard! Why did I not think of this before??My DD isn't a climber either, but there is no predicting.
Watch me freaking go into labor tonight so I can't do this tomorrow.

[boiler717]

We don't, but we don't have kids and my niece and nephew are older. We only have one dresser right now too! everything else is pretty small. We had large Billys and Expedits in the old house that were secured to the wall.

I haven't seen the story, but I can guess. Something similar happened in my SIL's neighborhood. Awful.

[mrsemilys]

We need to be better about this too. I am interested to hear what straps people recommend.

[pamela]

We don't. There is 1 bookshelf, maybe 1 dresser and maybe the changing table on our house that could be potential hazards. He's never shown any interest in them other than the door of the changing table and pulling books off the shelves. There's nothing on top of the 2 tall ones that would interest him. I'm really more worried about not having a knife far enough back on the counter or him grabbing something hot off the stove/counter while I'm standing right there but can't react as fast as he does. Or him climbing up on a kitchen chair, turning around and leaning backwards over it and falling over onto the tile floor and/or kitchen counter.

[SusanBAnthony]

We don't. Dd is almost 3 so I feel like maybe we are past it at this point. Maybe I am wrong? Anyway, there are 2 heavy dressers and one tall heavy bookshelf, but all are in the master bedroom. Scene the kids are rarely in there, I am going to let it slide until we move, but I will do it in the new house just in case.

[bunnymendelbaum]

I'm going to link to the blog.
The dresser that killed the 3 year old was short and seemed not hazardous. Really freaked me out.

[bunnymendelbaum]

Here it is:
www.meghanshope.org/

[pickle123]

Omg a 3 year old?!!

[emjacobs]

We have big things secured to the wall and don't have kids. Also something that is also overlooked: secure the shelves to the frame of the bookshelf. Some come secure, others are re-positionable, make sure that they are secured so if a child decides to climb on them they won't flip out and fall.

Also make sure that you secure into the stud and account for the full loaded weight of the item + a child, when in doubt oversecure.

[Deleted]

Some, but not all. This has been added to the top of the to-do list.

[cajungal]

We moved a little over a month ago. Our furniture was strapped in the old house, but it's not yet in this house. I read that blog post last night. I couldn't make it through the whole post, it was so gut-wrenching. I have a 3 year old, and an almost 2 year old. We will be getting all furniture strapped to the walls by this weekend, hopefully tonight.

[mrs.jacinthe]

None of our furniture is. However, I'm thinking we'll make that a priority if/when we manage to pop out a kid. I remember what I was like as a child and honestly, I'm not sure how I made it to adulthood sometimes - so it's definitely a good precaution to take.

[Deleted]

Oh my god, that is awful. We don't have anything secured but we don't have kids and don't plan to. My nephew isn't around enough to worry about it, whenever he is here either my brother,dad, myself, or H watches him like a hawk.

[MrsMB]

We're not even TTC right now, but I just pinned a reminder to get wall straps on my secret TTC board on Pinterest.

[Deleted]

How sad. That is awful.

Very little of our furniture is strapped to be honest.
The only things that are is the dresser the TV sits on in the LR..it's sturdy but with the TV you never know. Also our ladder shelves/e. center in the playroom are. All my other furniture is like 400 pounds solid. I can climb the drawers without issue even. (I've tried..don't ask). There's a couple more things I need to do and after this I have to move it to the top of our list.

I don't have a climber at all though. She's much more of a digger.

[cosmowife]

I found these straps called quake hold, I think, on amazon. They are detachable if needed but secure like 1000 lbs. they are steel. All of our furniture is antique or vintage and weighs a ton. We have strapped the antique dresser in his room but need to finish the rest of the house. We probably have like 15 pieces to strap

[bunnymendelbaum]

Phew! I just strapped the two death trap antique dressers in the new nursery.
I feel so much better.

[heartmama]

Ours is not, but I already ordered some stuff on amazon today. I'd rather be save than sorry.

[wawa]

How do you strap furniture that isn't above eye height? I'm assuming you aren't attaching it to the top of the furniture? Do you just screw it to the back?

[bunnymendelbaum]

you screw it to the back always I think.
For the dressers, I took out a drawer to look for the frame and then screwed thru the back and into the structural frame of the dresser.

[wawa]

Jan 3, 2013 11:50:26 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

you screw it to the back always I think.
For the dressers, I took out a drawer to look for the frame and then screwed thru the back and into the structural frame of the dresser.

that makes sense. I was looking at instructions online for something that is intended for earthquake safety and it showed attaching the strap at the top of a bookshelf or filing cabinet.

[heygrey]

How tragic.

We don't have anything strapped, but we don't have kids or pets or any who visit. It will be top priority when we have a kid though.

[ktzmoh]

Ours are not. We have a big very heavy dresser in Kate's room - she's still in a crib though. Jackson only has a couple of bookshelves, but I think I'll strap those anyway. Our bedroom has a big huge heavy dresser that could fall, and we have a TV downstairs that could potentially fall on the kids. I want DH to hang it on the wall - so maybe this will be a good reminder to get trhat done.

It's so scary- you just never know what could happen at any time. I can't tell you how many times we've had scary close calls (who knows how 'close' they actually were, but felt scary enough anyways).

[mrsemilys]

Please post an amazon link to what you bought....

[bunnymendelbaum]

This is what I bought:

www.amazon.com/Furniture-Wall-Straps-Set-2/dp/B000056W7R

[mrsemilys]

Jan 3, 2013 13:32:24 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

This is what I bought:

www.amazon.com/Furniture-Wall-Straps-Set-2/dp/B000056W7R

Thanks!!

[cosmowife]

This is what I bought - they have 7" and 4". The connection pieces are the same so I might switch out my 7" for a 4". There is not much give in the steel, however, so a 4" piece means you really need to be within an inch or two of the wall.

www.amazon.com/Quakehold-2830-7-Inch-Steel-Furniture/dp/B000FJQQKO/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1357238210&sr=8-6&keywords=quake+hold