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Ikea makes chests safer

July 23, 2015

Swedish furniture giant Ikea has said it's offering free kits in North America to mount tall chests and dressers to the wall. The announcement came a year after two chests tipped over and fatally injured two boys.

https://p.dw.com/p/1G3Sy
Ikea store
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Golovkin

Ikea said it was now providing North American customers with free kits helping them to affix chests to the wall. It added the kits would be available to people who bought dressers about a specific height, including 7 million of Ikea's Malm chests.

Both Ikea and the US Consumer Product and Safety Commission (CPSC) emphasized that consumers should keep the affected furniture (about 27 million chests) away from children unless the products were mounted to a wall.

"They are unstable when built and used without a wall anchoring device," the CPSC commented.

Quick fix?

Two little boys were killed in 2014 after Malm chests that had not been secured to walls tipped over and fell on them.

The CPSC said the Swedish company had so far received 14 reports of Malm chest falling over, resulting in more injuries.

Ikea isn't offering a refund or telling customers to return the furniture to its stores and stresses that customers won't need proof of purchase to get the kits it's offering. The company described the move as "corrective action."

The CPSC said it could not find a record of any furniture fixing program this size.

hg/sgb (AP, Reuters)