The Curious Toddler and Adhesives

Jessie, aged 14 months, is a curious little monkey. Looking at things isn't good enough. She has to touch them too. Even before she discovered the kitchen cabinets, we had put locks on most of them, but there were some that had no good way of being locked. Enter the Safety 1st Adjustable Multi-Purpose Strap. Now, it's a good idea in theory, and I was excited to have found a way to secure the cabinet doors, but I was a bit skeptical about how well the straps would hold up -- since they were secured with adhesives. Well, I was right, they don't hold up. Grrr. Now I'm considering using Gorilla Glue or some other strong glue to keep them from coming off. Ironically, it's the side that sticks to the plastic lock piece that's delaminating and not the side that sticks to our wooden cabinet doors. The company should seriously think about improving their crap product.

TIP: Have you ever had to deal with stickers that just won't come off cleanly from beautiful things that you just bought at the store? Try using Vaseline (petroleum jelly) to dissolve the adhesive and then wipe it off with a paper towel. It might take a couple of tries, but the adhesive does eventually come off. Adhesives are often low molecular weight polymers that should dissolve in petroleum jelly, which is composed of a mixture of saturated hydrocarbons.