CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Ali Washburn says she was walking up to her front door.
"It smelled like gas really strongly and I thought it was just outside and maybe there was a leak somewhere, but I got closer to the door and I opened the door and i realized it was definitely in the house," Washburn said.
She grabbed her dog, got out, and called 911.
"They said that the back burner [of the stove] had just been leaking gas and I hadn't used the stove honestly in days," Washburn said. "One of us must have just bumped it lightly. If I would have been gone longer, I mean I just happened to be gone for two hours, if I had been gone longer, I don't know what could have happened."
"I think it's really scary if you have a kid and your child could walk right by and hit it and not even know, and then you're in your home, going on about your life, and you might not smell it right away, and it could just be really scary," Washburn added. "Especially, if you have young kids at home."
Washburn has a LG gas stove with front knobs.
Action 9's Jason Stoogenke went through Consumer Product Safety Commission records. He looked for complaints about LG stoves where customers claimed you could knock the knobs into the "on" position too easily.
He found more than 20. He also found that in 2012, LG recalled 161,000 electric stoves for this same issue, but it hasn't recalled any gas stoves.
LG gave the CPSC basically the same response to every complaint, that "LG manufactures this gas range to meet or exceed all relevant standards" and "LG takes very seriously the concerns of our customers and uses such feedback on an on-going basis to evaluate and improve our products."
Stoogenke emailed and called LG multiple times since Veteran's Day in November. The company hadn't responded by 5 p.m. Thursday.
You can buy locks for stoves. Stoogenke found a set on Amazon for about $7.
Also, it's always a good reminder to have working smoke detectors in your home and, if you smell gas, take it seriously.
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