Three children, under the age of 3 have died in three separate incidents involving IKEA dressers. The units are said to have toppled over on them. One accident happened over 20 years, and the two others are more recent. Also, 36 other reports of children being injured by IKEA dressers have been filed.
The units are apparently unstable when not secured to a wall.
The recall, which involves units that have been sold at IKEA for years, only applies to customers in the U.S. and Canada. The units under recall involve children’s chests and dressers taller than 23.5 inches and adult chests and dressers taller than 29.5 inches.
The Swedish retailer is encouraging anyone who has these dressers to keep them out of reach of children, or to securely attach them to a wall. They are offering free kits to make these adjustments.
If you don’t want to keep the recalled furniture, IKEA is offering full refunds to these dressers if purchased between 2002 and 2016. For any dressers bought previously to 2002, the retailer is offering store credit for half the original price.
Ikea USA President Lars Petersson said the chests and dressers were sold with instructions saying they had to be mounted to walls. Last year, the company offered free wall-mounting kits to owners of its Malm chests and dressers after reports of children’s deaths.
