Unexplained glass breakage

[Dfg15]

Was woken up about 4 this morning by the sound of breaking glass. Got up and had a look all round my flat but couldn't see anything. Just went to the cupboard to get a plate for my toast and one of my glass plates was smashed to pieces on the shelf! It hadn't fallen down was just where they always are. Spooky or what?

I would love to say a ghost but I think you may have mice or rats

Oh good god ! I'd prefer a ghost. No sign of rats or mice. I think it might have had a flaw in it and just gave way. The cupboard gets very cold also so that might have done it. It did spook me a bit I must say.

Is it one of those toughened glass plates? Arcoroc or similar?

They (and the glasses) sometimes shatter apparently at random. Something to do with the protective coating giving way or something.

If it's a crystal plate, I got nothin'

A mouse or a rat would have to give it a hefty whack, wouldn't it?

It was a toughened glass plate yes. It was in exactly the same place as I left it, just all in pieces. A mouse or rat would have had REALLY whack it.

Temperature dropping in the kitchen on a cold night. Weakened, old plate?

I have had IKEA malm drawers with the tempered glass top for around 4 years. About a month ago I was standing beside it one morning in the dark because dh was sleeping,, getting dressed, never touched it, when it basically exploded and there was glass everywhere.

Googled it and found out tempered glass can sometimes have flaws (small pieces of metal) that change over time and then changes in temperature can cause a build up of pressure around them causing the glass to shatter.

Yes our old glass tv unit held a 55" tv for a year, we lifted it off to put on the wall and 5 mins later the unit EXPLODED around us. There wax glass everywhere

Blimey I never knew that could happen. It was a new plate, one of a set of four. Bit scared of the rest of them now

Watch out for the tiny glass splinters that can be left behind, I was finding them, mostly in my feet, for days after even after vacuuming the laminate flooring and wiping with a damp cloth more than once.

A few years ago I was convinced I had a poltergeist - I would go into the kitchen in the morning and find the olive oil moved from the counter and it would either be in a totally different spot or sometimes in the middle of the floor
I would also find quite large items moved from the front room into other rooms.

I was, being the completely rational person I am, totally petrified and considering priest intervention, when my boyfriend recorded the goings on at night with his iPad and discovered it was huge, terrifying rats.

I think I would have preferred the poltergeist.

It's because there was an extra second in the last minute of 2016; the pressure of waiting that bit longer for the year to end was too much and it shattered under the excessive strain.

How could rats move things from one room to another ? They must have been huge. No more plate breaking so far, although I'm still wary of opening the cupboard.

At my parents house we had a huge orange glass 60's lamp shade over the living room light. We were all watching a cheesy spooky film one evening and it exploded without warning leaving little bits of glass all over our toast on the coffee table. Spooky at the time, but pretty sure it was just old knackered glass.