I was thinking the other day that we have really been lucky as far as home accidents go. I’m not talking about falls or cuts and injuries but fires and real disasters.
Back in the late 80’s we had a fire in our home. I woke up to the sound of the smoke alarms and had Paul call 911 while I got the kids downstairs and out of the house. By the time I got to the front door, there was a policeman there already. He must have just been driving by. We got the kids and animals outside and the firemen got there and we couldn’t “find” the fire. Finally one of the fireman discovered it was the toaster and it had burned the oven mitts that I kept on top of it. Being they were “flame retardant,” all they did was smolder and STINK! I will never forget that smell. Nothing was really ruined but it took a lot of clean up. There had been a short in the toaster and it just turned on. Of course ever since, I never leave my toaster plugged in.
Another time we had company from out of town. I had turned the dishwasher on and we’d all gone to the grocery store and when we got back we found our kitchen floor covered in water. Down in the basement it looked like it was raining. The dishwasher had gotten stuck and didn’t turn off. Another lesson, don’t leave home with water running in any machine.
There were the other little accidents. Toby and Shane were about 4 and upstairs taking a bath when we noticed water dripping from the living room ceiling. They overflowed the bathtub! I’m sure it was all Shane’s idea (sarcasm!)!!!
Jason caught on fire once. I’d gotten home from working on the playground and was really cold so I lit a fire in the fireplace and when Jason got home from school, he sat down on the hearth and a spark must have landed “just perfect” and his shirt started it on fire. I was in the kitchen fixing supper and he called “MOM” is such a way that I knew something was wrong. I ran in and threw him to the ground and ripped his shirt right off his body. After it was over, we laughed like hyena’s. It must have just been shock but we sat there laughing.
So now I never leave my house with heat of any kind on. Not even the coffee pot plugged in and never leave my washer or dishwasher on.
How about you? Have any freak things happened to you that scared you and altered the way you do things?
Us Girls..Our Views 
Not really.. but thank god. God has kept you and your family safe!
Too many to count or regale you with – its a safety issue me telling all the tales, your stomach will hurt too much see
I haven’t had too many sudden things happen, but I’ve had slow things happen which I didn’t notice until they were really bad – and that is worse in some ways. Like when the furnace / air conditioning unit leaked in the basement and I will spare you the disgusting results I had to clean up. Or the when the garbage disposal in our sink sprung a leak. I always seem to discover these things at the most inopportune time, too.
Possibly the worst was when a skunk who was living in our foundation got killed by a cat. We thought he just sprayed down there but later realized he’d bit the dust. Needless to say, we weren’t entertaining down there for a while. Currently I think some raccoons are hanging out down there and I hope they have the decency to die outside when the time comes.
When we bought our washer & dryer, the salesman said that one of the biggest causes of house fires is exhaust from the dryer, so nobody should ever leave the house with the dryer on. Just a thought in case anyone out there does this.
I’ve caught the microwave on fire while defrosting chicken in the package. I have not used the microwave to defrost in 4 years – I use the fridge, and if I forget to take something out, well, dinner plans can change.
My husband has broken a window while using a ladder to put up the gutter. He’s no longer allowed to use said ladder without supervision by me (as opposed to other men, who were laughing as I was picking glass out of my bedroom carpet).
Sophie broke her nose on our entryway step. I’ve tried to cut back on her running in the house, but now I just keep a bag of ER toys in the car. Hydrogen peroxide is wonderful at getting blood out of just about anything.
OMG!! Okay because of all the things you have listed, I do not leave any of my kitchen appliances plugged in, I do not leave with my washer or dryer going. Jason has always been adamant about those things. And because of my beloved Lanie’s freak accident, I always do a walk through before leaving to make sure there are no bags laying around!!! For those who don’t know a Cheeto’s bag was left in the play room one day and I came home to find my lab Lanie dead from suffocation. She still had the bag on her head. An image that will never leave my mind unfortunately. But really other than that we have been very lucky also, but we are very precautious.
And growing up nothing ever happened besides our house getting broke into, often. That’s always scary.
Knock on wood we have been blessed! I never let the dishwasher or washing machine run while I am not home. I don’t even like using my crock pot when I am not home!
I was raised my the most paranoid man alive so I’m pretty careful about this stuff. My Dad wouldn’t leave the house without unplugging everything and my mother never had a dryer until a couple years ago (she waited 40+ years of marriage!) and they don’t own a dishwasher. He would never leave the house with the furnace on (we had a wood furnace in the basement).
I never leave the house with the dryer on and I never let it run while we’re sleeping at night. That’s my really paranoia. I have set up the dishwasher to run while we’re gone, and the washer will just leak on the already usually wet floor in the basement so I’m not too worried about that.
Probably the freakiest accident ever to happen to Chuck and I didn’t happen at home. We were eating dinner at a favorite diner for our 1st wedding anniversary when a little old lady pulled into the parking space and hit the gas instead of the brake! She drove through our booth in the restaurant!!!!! The plate glass windows crashed down, the brick wall of the building tumbled inward into our laps, my shoes flew off and we were shot out of our booth. Amazingly we weren’t injured, we were both very sore for several days just from the force and we ended up wearing our dinner. Even in the midst of the broken class I wandered barefoot looking for my shoes and didn’t get cut. The woman behind us had a small cut on her hand, but otherwise that was the extent of the injuries.
To this day though I have trouble sitting in a booth that faces the parking lot. I’ve forced myself to do it, but I cringe every time someone pulls into the parking lot.
Jen, that is something else!! Cringe is right!
We’ve been very lucky, too. The only freak think I can think of was the time my tea light candle started on fire. I know, that sounds weird, but it was a cheap candle and the wax had all melted while it was burning and somehow it caught fire! I was home and on the phone with Joy, I looked over and there are flames shooting out the top of the candle holder! I managed to get the fire out, but since then I will not buy cheap candles!
A couple of winters ago I put my daughter’s tennis shoes on the fire place harth. You know just to warm them up a bit for her.
Dog gone if they didn’t catch on fire! I could have handled it fine if my wife hadn’t panicked. She picked them up and promptly dropped them on the carpet burning the carpet.
The only other thing was when my middle daughter was jumping up and down on the couch she fell and landed on the peek-corner of the coffee table. Since her hair was blond-blond the red blood freeked both me and my wife out.
We took her to the emergency room and they had to strap her onto one of those papoos boards to stich up her head. My wife said she could hear her screaming from the waiting room. She coldn’t take it and had to leave the emergency room.
Oh! Well there was this other time… when my wife left me to watch our oldest daughter when she was just over a year old. We were out in the garage and she climbed up and stood in her stroller. Of course the stroller rolled right out from under her and the first thing to hit the concrete was the peek of her forehead. She didn’t scream until the blold trickled down her face. She still carries the scar to this day. And of course, even after twenty-seven years, I still get ragged about that.
Yipes, these stories are giving me the willies! :O
We’ve been very fortunate with this kind of thing. My only ‘careful’ concern is always checking that the coffee pot and dryer are off when we leave the house. Other than that, no phobias.
(Except for evil chickens and balloons. And evil chickens WITH balloons. And balloons shaped like evil chickens. But that’s it.)
I have a whole blog’s worth but the best one happened when my son was about 5 and I let him vacuum the living room. He loved to vacuum. What I didn’t know is that he decided to vacuum some of the lit ashes in the fireplace and soon flames were shooting out of the canister vacuum.When I say shooting I mean shooting out about 3 or 4 feet. It was crazy. I pulled the plug and threw it out the back door and then laughed until I cried. The bad part was we had to buy a new vacuum. Poor little Damon couldn’t imagine what had happened.
I want to officially nominate JOANHARVEST for the Gold Medal for the home accident contest.
Clearly this is when and where the Olympic Flame passed through her home town. lol
That is just hillarious.
I’ll second you mssc54
This is such a fun place to come. Joan’s story is pretty good but so is yours mssc54. No, we’ve been lucky this way. We do have our share of tornado’s but fortunately, all we’ve had has been minimal wind damage and a little flooding but nothing that’s been really bad.
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