Feliway plug in users...question

[nancys]

Someone sent me an email a few years ago about the plug ins and how dangerous they are. Evidently they are the cause of many house fires. I would warn people about them.

[MBones]

Catlady,

I want to THANK YOU for this thread, because last Saturday night, my husband was upstairs and thought he smelled something burning. He asked me to come upstairs to check it out, and yep, I smelled it as I was coming up the stairs. If I hadn't seen this post, I might not have thought to check the Feliway plug-in, but that's the first thing that I checked. Yes, it was hot and the plastic had started to melt!

We unplugged it immediately and went to check all of the others as well. They weren't even warm, but we now make it a habit to check them out as we are going from room to room. I hate to stop using them since they calm my Abbycat down so much. I shudder to think what would have happened if we were away from home for a few days. Thanks again!

Mary

[Catlady711]

Wow, I'm glad then that I posted this and you found that defective one before something really bad happened. That would have freaked me out even more than my experience did! You may want to contact that vet tech from Ceva listed on my email and tell her what happened. They may replace your unit for free, or tell you how to go about getting a refund for that unit depending on where/how it was purchased. I'm glad the other units are working fine and safely for you.

It's a shame too, because they really do work better than the Feliway spray. I wish they'd just make one of those aerosol (sp?) things that takes a AA battery and spritzes automatically at set time intervals. Seems to me it would be much safer and nearly as effective.

Anyways I spoke with my boss and he had me call the district rep for our distributor. I explained to her what was going on and what the email contained from Ceva. The rep is going to send a call tag and pick up the units I have, send them back as defective, and replace them with new ones. By doing it this way it shouldn't cost me a dime extra, but it's a long way of doing it. Based on past history with waiting for call tags this could take a few weeks to get replacements!

**edited to add** The instructions with my diffuser says to replace the diffuser every 6 months. While I originally thought that was a bit unecessary, given others experiences and my own I wonder if the diffusers short out or something after awhile??

[MBones]

You bring up a good point about replacing every six months. Ours are definately older than that. Perhaps the durability of the dispenser erodes with age. We are trying something new, though. Are you familiar with the Glade plug ins? They disburse scent much like the feliway dispenses pheremones. We bought a Glade plug in, dumped the scent, and replaced it with Feliway. We've used the scent dispensers for a long time and never had a "burning" issue. They are much cheaper than the Feliway; we paid $4.34 for the scent dispenser.

It must be working, because my problem kitty is sitting right next to me and she very rarely does that! I'll keep you posted on any issues; I would hate to stop using Feliway due to safety issues.

[Catlady711]

I used Glad plug ins for years without problems either. I unplugged all of them when the peeing started because I had read an article that sometimes other strong scents may cause a cat to mark.

Our distributor sent the new replacements today. I just plugged in one and it's not as hot as the others but still much warmer than I'd care for on a plastic object. I figure I'll just only plug them in when I'm here and unplug them when I'm gone or going to sleep. I'm sure this won't be as effective, but it's got to be better than nothing, and certainly a bit safer than just leaving them plugged in. When I plugged it in the cats came sniffing around within minutes. I can't really smell anything, but obviously they do.

On a side note I've been noticing the Feliway plug in's at the pet stores are made by a different company than the ones I have. The pet store ones are made by a US company called Farnam (or something similar) and the ones I have are made in France by Ceva. I'm wondering if that has anything to do with all this? I'm reluctant to try the pet store versions because I get my diffusers with one included vial for $21 at work (refills are $12), the pet store ones are $36 even with a coupon!! I'd hate to spend the extra money to find out they all are the same.

[Sashamom]

I use three dispensers in my house, and they really help my two cats get along. I noticed recently that two of the three (and they are the oldest, over a year probably) not only got very hot, but both have melted plastic and a scorched area, behind where the wick comes up! My boxes didn't have the warning to replace every six months. The newer one I use hasn't done that, but - wow, I think I'll try the Glade idea with one, and see how it works out. This is a good thing to warn people about!