A close call

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I think I've mentioned before that the place we are staying until our house in WI sells is a maintainence nightmare...  until yesterday, I don't think I realized the full scale of the issue though.  Yesterday around lunch time I was getting ready to feed the girls some lunch.  Thankfully, I had put the baby in her highchair with some cheerios, so she was happy.  My oldest daughter had just darted past me as I stood in front of the pantry cabinet to try to decide what was for lunch.  I pulled out the top shelf (it has the heavy-duty roll out shelves made to accommodate a lot of staples).  The top shelf caught on the top of a  coffee tin on the shelf below and pulled it out as well, when all of the sudden the entire 8 ft. cabinet fell over on top of me.  The remaining drawers/shelves came flying out and peppering me with canned goods and jars of homemade pickles and pinned me between the fallen cabinet and the kitchen bar.  Thankfully, my oldest had just cleared the area when it fell, and thankfully I didn't have the baby in my hands still.  Come to find out, there was not so much as one screw holding the unit to the wall!!!  It weighs nearly 300 lbs fully stocked.  I couldn't move, and couldn't lift it off myself, so my older daughter quickly unloaded the remaining stuff off the shelves and set it on the table.  My middle daughter fed the baby cheerios and kept her happy during the process.  She really struggled with the big bins of rice and beans and cornmeal on the bottom shelf, but managed to lug them out anyway.  I think I was stuck there about fifteen minutes and my legs and arms were shaking with holding up the weight of the unit, until finally all the heavy stuff was removed and I was able to right the cabinet and get free of it.  The kids are now under strict orders not to touch the pantry.  The shelves were NOT overloaded, and I only had to have two drawers out at once to tip it over.   When I go in to pay rent on the first, they are probably going to get an earful.  I am not a litigation-happy person by any means, but if it had hurt one of my kids, so help me I'd have sued their socks off, and probably done bodily harm to the little weasel in charge of the property management place.   DD asked me what would have happened  if she hadn't been there, and truthfully, I probably would've been pinned until DH got home.  As it is, I'll be a little black and blue for a while, but at least there were no serious injuries.  (If one of the kids had been in front of it, it could have been VERY serious.)

[MountainDon]

It's good that it worked out as it did. Glad you are all okay.

[southernsis]

Homegrown,
I am so glad you are okay. It could have been a nightmare.

[StinkerBell]

Glad to read you are still alive!

[Whitlock]

  Close call glad you are allright. Are you kin to Glenn he is allways having close calls.

[Sassy]

Gee Homegrown, that must have been quite an ordeal...  how scary - glad you are ok - who'd have thought that the cupboards were so poorly installed.  Glad your kids are ok, too.  Hope you aren't too sore. 

I think I'd tell them I wasn't paying the rent until things were fixed...  so much for permitted, inspected houses 

[glenn kangiser]

Glad you are alright, Homey.

W, You know I live on the edge, so I make my own close calls.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Hmmm...maybe I am kin to Glenn...   I do tend to get in a lot of scrapes, and usually it's my own fault, but this one I never saw coming.  The cabinetry in question here is about 8' tall and around 2.5 wide and as deep as normal kitchen cabinets.  It should have (and appeared to be, as it was flush with the wall and the end of the cabinet that houses the dishwasher) been secured to the floor or wall.  The top door swung open and whacked me in the side of the head as a tub of oatmeal slid out and I ducked.  The oatmeal is the only thing that fell out of the very top part, miraculously, and it was thankfully pretty light.  The rest of the stuff came sliding out on the roller shelves.  Thankfully the little dowel rod across the front held a lot of it in, but nothing like a few canned goods to the stomach and toes to make sure you're paying attention.  I have a few bruises, but not sore at all.  Shook for a few hours, but not sure how much of that was adrenaline, how much was fury, and how much was not being used to lifting that kind of weight for such a prolonged time.  Moral of the story if you live in a house you did NOT build yourself, CHECK EVERYTHING and never assume that ANYTHING is done right!!!!