Unsafe Kitchen Appliances Account For 1 In 3 Consumer Complaints

It’s been one year since the Consumer Product Safety Commission launched its SaferProducts.gov portal for consumers to post reports of unsafe items. With thousands of complaints filed in the last 12 months, it’s already become clear that kitchen appliances dominate consumers’ safety concerns.

Kitchen products accounted for a full 36% of reports filed through SaferProducts.gov, with electric ranges and ovens representing 9.7% of all complaints. That’s four times the number of reports associated with gas ranges and ovens.

Other kitchen appliances on the list of the top 10 most-reported products were dishwashers (accounting for 6.7% of complaints), refrigerators (4.2%), microwaves (2.9%), electric coffee makers/tea pots (2.2%) and non-metal cookware (1.7%).

Perhaps surprisingly, there were enough people complaining about footwear to make that category the third most-reported. Cribs and light bulbs also made the top 10 list.

SaferProducts.gov isn’t just a place for people to complain about unsafe products. It’s also a searchable database available to anyone.

“Before SaferProducts.gov, you would have had to file a Freedom of Information Act request about a specific product and manufacturer to learn about consumer product complaints received by CPSC,” says the commission.

To promote the site, CPSC has created a series of clips like the one below. Unfortunately they’re nowhere near as grotesque as those Canadian “Prevent It” ads from a few years back.

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