An Oregon woman has issued a viral warning not to leave a common household item unattended.
Julie Endicott, who goes by @homesteadingmommasaga on TikTok, revealed in a recent video that she discovered a USB-C charging cable burning through a blanket in her home.
“Something was definitely hot. … I’m looking around and freaking out because I smelled something,” Endicott explains in the video.
She said the charger was “pretty new” and that up until that point, she had hardly used it.
Endicott, who runs a farm in the country, tells Realtor.com® that the defective charger was generic and had no brand name.
“There is no lettering or brand name on the charger. I have no idea what electronic device it was meant for,” she explains. “I thought any USB-C charger could be used universally for all electronic devices that require a USB-C charger.”
Her son’s tablet had been plugged in overnight and had been charging for about 12 hours.
“My son unplugged it [from the charger] in the morning and asked me to turn on his tablet, which I didn’t do because we were going out to do work,” she says. “It was then disconnected from the tablet and the end of the charger was lying on top of the blanket for about four hours or more.”
Endicott was at home looking for her purse before heading out to run errands when she sat down to answer a text.
“I was reacting very quickly when I smelled something hot,” she says. “I felt my phone and decided it wasn’t my phone. And then I looked up from the phone and saw smoke in the air, and it was heavier in my living room.”
Her son was in the living room at the time.
“I started checking everything that was plugged in,” she says. “When I made my way to the couch, there was a plug behind the couch. I could see smoke coming from the blanket.”
She quickly unplugged the charger and threw it away.
“I had seen the charger sitting on the blanket earlier when I was sitting on the couch in the morning, but I didn’t think anything of it,” she says.
“It looked normal and there was no indication of damage. I had no idea they were so dangerous. When it started to melt, it smelled like overheated electronics. Hot electronics have a distinct smell, so I started looking for all the plugged-in electronics in the living room.”
Endicott says she puts all her chargers into a strip now and closes it when not in use.
“I also don’t leave them near anything flammable,” she adds.
#woman #common #household #appliance #burned #house
Image Source : nypost.com