Ikea Home Furnishings is an international furniture store that draws millions of customers.
Now many of those customers are returning to the store with their purchase following a voluntary recall.
The Ikea recall applies to at least 29 million chests and dressers sold in the United States. The company’s Malm products will be discontinued altogether because of tip-over dangers.
In 2015, Ikea started offering anchoring kits to customers who purchased the dressers. Ikea will now also offer full refunds or partial store credit depending on the manufacturing dates of the dresser or chests.
The recalled dressers are from its Malm line and other furniture lines.
In the past 13 years, six children have been crushed to death after an Ikea dresser tipped over. The most recent tip-over death happened in February.
In addition to these tip over deaths, Ikea has received reports of more than 40 tip-over incidents involving Malm chests and dressers.
John McCarthy is the executive director of Charlie’s House, a local non-profit that was created after 2-year-old Charlie Horn died after his dresser fell on top of him in 2007.
Charlie’s dresser was just 30 inches tall.
“Twenty-four thousand kids a year go to the emergency room due to tip overs. And roughly once every two weeks a child dies from a tip over,” said McCarthy.
Charlie's House gives away tip-resistant furniture brackets much like the ones Ikea offers to customers free of charge.
For a list of chests and dressers affected by this recall, please click here.
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Lisa Benson can be reached at lisa.benson@kshb.com.
