Do you slavishly turn off your tree lights when you leave the house

[CarmelitaMiggs]

I do

I think it's a bit irrational

Not irrational at all, I think they are a big fire hazard.

Yes. Not irrational.

do you actually know anyone whose tree lights have caused a fire

Yes, fire hazard and electricity bill. Am broke, would rather spend spare cash on something else.

Yes. Particularly after my cousin and her husband were almost killed in a fire caused by their tree lights on Xmas morning 2 years ago.

Well I will do once the tree/lights are up in a couple of weeks time.

ours are plugged into a tower that powers down when the tv is switched off so they go off automatically when we go out (as long as we remember to switch the tv off!!)

Yes. In fact I won't leave mine unattended in the room. But they are very, very old (50 years ish) so I don't want to take any risks. Having said that, they never have caused any problem so far.

YEs
Might combust otherwise

tell us more about your cousin

have got awful festive hankering to walk down my street, admiring the tree twinkling away in my bay window

Not up yet, we only have them on at night and switch them off at bedtime or if go out. Like any other light, really.

Cousin was in bed Xmas eve. Her DH was working. He came home around 3am and put the lights on. Went to bed around 4am and decided to leave the lights on as cousins DSs were coming back from being at their fathers overnight and would be back around 8. He wanted the place to look welcoming when cousin got up. They were woken around 6am by their dogs barking and lots of banging/crashing noises. Smelt smoke. Managed to get out through skylight in bathroom. Fire directly under boy's bedroom. They would not have made it had they been there. House destroyed.

I should, but often forget. That sounds horrific ABudaful

Not that they are especially Christmas related, but left-on mobile phone chargers are also, apparently, high on causes of fires.

I not have a time switch and a set 2 hour period when I charge different mobiles here. I have not yet checked how much electricity gets used when no phone is being charged, but there are at least 9 I can think of in the house right now (admittedly I've mislaid chargers for some, and use USB power from PCs to recharge them).

On the downside, where I do not always have mobile phone adaptors connected to the mains, there are quite a few other items plugged in for weeks or months at a time - mains adaptors for laptops, cordless phones, external hard drives, networking kit... the list goes on...

Thanks for the reminder! I wasnt aware of mobile phone chargers either. Need to be a lot more careful.