Horror as hoover burst into flames
hoover fire. loraine charlton danielle stevenson, archie stevenson.
A GRANDMOTHER whose vacuum cleaner burst into flames as her eight-week-old grandson lay on the sofa has told the Advertiser the pair are lucky to have escaped unharmed.
Loraine Charlton, 48, was cleaning at her Amberley Close home when the Morphy Richards vacuum blew up.
She said: “I was just hoovering and Archie was laying on the settee.
“The next thing I knew there were flames coming out of the front of the hoover.
“Luckily we’ve got doors at the back of the living room opening into the garden and I just took it outside.
“I don’t know how I thought so fast but it’s a good job I did.
“If the sofa would have gone up I dread to think what could have happened.
“Archie was on there right near where I was using it.”
Loraine had only purchased the vacuum that week and contacted Morphy Richards to tell them what had happened.
She made a complaint and was asked to send the appliance to the company’s headquarters for testing.
When Loraine heard back from the customer services department she immediately contacted the Advertiser.
She said: “I couldn’t believe it when I got a letter back saying there’s nothing wrong with the vacuum and they’re sending it back to me.
“I rang them up and they said it still turns on and off so it’s fine.
“It nearly set my living room on fire. I’m absolutely disgusted. There’s no way I’ll be using it again.”
The flames melted a patch of Loraine’s front room carpet and the ceiling was marked by the smoke.
She said: “I’m going to have to get the carpet sorted and re-decorate as well as pay for a new vacuum.
“I just can’t believe it, they don’t even care when I say that Archie was in the room.
“I’m just glad that I managed to get it ouside and away from him or things could have been so much worse. I dread to think.”
A spokesman for Morphy Ricards said: “At Morphy Richards, we take customer complaints and customer safety extremely seriously and were concerned to hear of the incident that Loraine Charlton has recently reported.
“We have been manufacturing high quality domestic appliances for 75 years and rigorously test them to ensure that British and European safety standards are met.”
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Friday 25 May 2012
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