Mothers still seeking answers from IKEA on the deaths of their children
IKEA pulled in $6 billion in U.S. sales in 2018. Crystal Ellis wants that number to be lower.
The Seattle mom's 2-year-old son, Camden, was killed by a falling IKEA dresser in 2014, which has since been recalled by the company. Three years later, she requested to meet with the president of the retailer, pleading for action to get the dresser out of other homes.
That meeting has not yet happened. And Ellis is not the only parent demanding it.
There have been at least 186 reports of Malm dressers tipping over, with 91 resulting in injuries. There are 113 more reports of other IKEA dresser fall-overs, resulting in 53 injuries. Eight children have died from the incidents.
FOX Business spoke to the moms of three of them.
Along with Ellis, Meghan DeLong and Janet McGee started the advocate group Parents Against Tip-Overs in the wake of their children’s deaths. Their goal was to get answers.
Ellis wrote to IKEA’s president of U.S. operations and received a response in July: “Thank you for your outreach," Javier Quiñones said. "We would be happy to meet in person.”
Ellis and the others hoped to meet with him this week when their group assembled in the Philadelphia area, where IKEA's U.S. branch is headquartered but said they were snubbed.
“There were several back-and-forth emails,” DeLong explained. "We’ve made several attempts to reach out. It would have been a perfect opportunity for the company to meet with parents. But the response is always the same.”
Delaying.
Spokespeople for IKEA told Ellis that Quiñones won’t meet until pending litigation against the company is resolved. “We apologize this was not clear in the original letter,” Tracey Kelly, a corporate communications manager for the brand, said in a statement.
“Mr. Quiñones understands that families may be frustrated that the suggested timing doesn’t work. He looks forward to meeting once litigation has been resolved to talk about how to address this issue that impacts the entire home-furnishings industry.”
IKEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from FOX Business.
Quiñones took over IKEA's U.S. division in March, several years after Ellis’ son was killed. However, he previously held a similar role at the retailer’s headquarters in the United Kingdon, where the dressers remain available.
The moms still think opening a dialogue is important: “The one thing we want to walk away with is to collaborate with them, to help make this recall more effective and to get these deadly dressers out of people's homes,” McGee said.
“There are millions of these still in people's homes. They’re ticking time bombs.”
IKEA recalled more than 29 million dressers in 2016 in an attempt to remedy the accidents and supplied 1 million anchoring kits to families with small children.
The recall, however, makes up for only a small percentage of all IKEA dressers. And Ellis said many parents don’t know the product was even recalled. It can still be found online from third-party sellers like Facebook Marketplace, too.
The tip-overs usually occur when someone pulls on, and topples, a dresser, IKEA said. Of the 28,000 people injured in tip-overs each year, more than half are children, and a child dies every two weeks from falling furniture.
“I don’t get to take more pictures [with my son]. I don’t get to watch him learn to ride a bike, make his first friends, meet the love of his life, dance at his wedding and hold his children as my grandbabies,” Ellis told USA Today. “I don’t get to be a part of that because a manufacturer decided they were not obligated to make furniture that won’t fall over.
“The opportunity to look [IKEA] in the face and remind them of the impact on families is important to me. Maybe that conversation would remind them that if they don’t get these dressers out of homes, the result is more families like mine.”
IKEA said they've taken an aggressive approach to reach consumers who may still own the recalled dressers, which includes a national television campaign, direct emails and in-store and online ads.
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“We take the communication of this very seriously and would certainly be interested in hearing what additional actions we can take to get the message out to more consumers.”
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For now, the moms are still waiting.
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