Product Safety Alert! Tiered Bookshelves

I bought a five-tiered bookshelf from Target about three years ago. It was very affordable and easy to assemble, but by golly it did not last! Today I found myself cleaning up a mess of books, wood-like material, and little plastic pegs.

There are two (now) obvious structural problems with this particular bookshelf. The first is that the sides were made to be stacked upon one another during at-home assembly, rather than made with one long solid piece per side. I suppose that this was intended to allow for height adjustability, since the top half of the shelves was salvageable after the great collapse. The second problem with this shelf's design is that it is held together with plastic pegs that don't fit very snugly into the panel's holes. The result of these two problems was for me that I noticed the heavily-laden shelf leaning towards the left, not like the Tower of Piza, but from the middle, where two halves should have been secured.

Eek! The shelf was leaning in the direction of our beautiful potted jade, an immobile and vulnerable life-form. I leapt into action, tried to hold the case, put the side back in place, but one side comes undone and others loosen, too. The shelf was too heavy to hold; there was nothing I could do but let it fall forward. At least I saved the jade.

Now, what if I had not been home to notice that the shelf was about to fall? What if a small child had been playing on the floor nearby or reaching for a book? The danger of using bookshelves of such poor design is obvious, and I am so grateful that in this case (no pun intended) no one was hurt.

I am glad to find that, after browsing Target's website, they do not seem to be offering this same bookcase today. Still, if you have an inexpensive shelf in your home, especially if you are using it for heavy books, please check that the side panels are of one long piece and that the pegs holding it together are structurally sound.