I was dozing off for the night just now and was awakened by smelling something burning. I went in the kitchen and one of the gas stove burners was on. I had laid a bamboo cutting board on the burner, which shouldn’t be a problem as I live alone and there isn’t a pilot light. Anyway the cutting board was smoking and scorched. I guess somehow my year-old kitten managed to turn on the burner although I don’t see how, since you have to turn the knob, push it in, and hold it for the burner to ignite. I’m glad the cutting board was there, otherwise the burner would have just stayed on all night. If that had happened when I wasn’t here to smell the smoke, the board would have eventually caught on fire. I need to get something to cover the knobs like when you have toddlers in the house. Weird. And scary.
If you’ve read my “help with dog symptoms” thread, I did float the theory that Sweetie’s odd behavior is as if the house were haunted…
Has anyone ever had a cat turn on gas stove burners? I was just looking at knob covers on Amazon, and the reviews aren’t very satisfactory. Don’t fit, fall off, melt from the heat, etc.
Guess it depends on where the knobs are located. I’ve never had that happen, but the stoves I’ve had with cats in the house have had knobs on the front. Only one of my cats could reach them from the floor (he’s very long/tall) and even then he would have to push in before turning and turn it 90 degrees to ignite. I could see him managing to release gas, but not to get it to light.
Do your knobs pull off for cleaning? You could just pull them off and put them in a nearby drawer when you’re not using them.
I suppose you could see about having your house “cleansed” if you are into that kind of thing. I don’t exactly buy into it, but a friend of mine is a shaman and she did it with my current place before I moved in for a bottle of wine. Couldn’t hurt, and hey, nice sage incense scent for a day!
Any time I think that cats couldn’t POSSIBLY cause trouble in a particular circumstance, I’ve been proven wrong. So I think that your cat might have turned on the burner. Perhaps it wanted to toast marshmallows, or grill a tuna steak.
The knobs are on the front of the stove. You have to push them in and turn them slightly and hold for a second and wait for the flame to ignite. There is no pilot light. The knobs will not turn unless pushed IN. They also do not readily come off.
I do not see how a cat could do this. She would have to stand on top of the stove in the space between the burners and reach down, exerting force toward herself and turning at the same time, while pausing to wait that second for the ignition? Seems absolutely impossible. Although what Lynn says is undeniably true.
I’ve been researching this. Something that seems relevant now, but that I didn’t mention before is that when I went into the kitchen and found the burner on, I heard a clicking sound from the electronic ignition of the other burners. We did have a thunderstorm last night, so there may have been something that made the electronic ignition come on.
BUT that does not explain why one burner was ON with flames with the knob actually turned to the on position.
Anecdotes aren’t data, and all that, but my brother-in-law’s cat somehow turned the gas on in the middle of the night, and his stove is as you describe. He bought plastic childproof covers for the knobs the next day.
I can see how a cat scrambling to get up onto the stove might have the knob pushed in and turned a little, just long enough to start the gas.
One trick that works on my stove is to twist a kitchen towel around the knob, and then pull on the towel. This allows you to pull straight - any sideways force on the knob can make it bind.