This is the
time of the year, when people put up their Christmas decorations… bathing their
houses, and trees, in pretty bright lights. Because the plug in lights are UL rated we
make the assumption that all lights are safe. That is not the case. I want to
tell you a little story about something that recently happened to me. I have alot of little vignettes throughout my house
where I put lights. Because these areas are small, I tend to use battery
powered lights. This year I bought a few boxes of them at Menards. I was
getting ready to put them out and about... But first, I wanted to test them to
see if they worked. It’s a good thing I did, otherwise we could have had a BIG
problem on our hands. What happened was this. I put the double AA batteries in
the control box and flipped the switch on. Normally the lights would light
and you’d be all set for Christmas. In this case, I did that… and smoke
immediately filled the room, as the lights started to spark. The smell was
horrible. I had to yank the batteries out of the control box, asap, to avoid a
fire. It was a scary moment, sitting at
my kitchen table. Can you imagine if I had not tested them first? If I had just
put them in place and randomly turned them on, whenever, who knows what damage
these light sets would have done. Thank heavens, I avoided a potential
catastrophe. I tell you this, not to put a damper on your Christmas decorating,
but to keep you diligent this holiday season. Accidents happen and you need to
prepare to help prevent them. Needless to say, my hubby
took the lights back to Menards and told them they were not safe. Hopefully
they took them off their shelves to avoid future problems. Meanwhile, we got
some new ones at Walmart that work fine.
