FENTON, Mo. — What sounded at first like popping balloons inside a family's home in Fenton, Missouri, ended up being a robotic vacuum on fire after its lithium batteries combusted.
Luckily, no one was hurt Friday morning and the damage was minimal. However, the family's daughter said she's still having nightmares about what happened.
Meagan Schmitz and her husband have lived in Fenton since 2009. They bought the now charred Eufy robo vacuum in June 2022 to help clean up after their 7-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son, plus their pets.
At 4 a.m. on March 1, one of the two robotic vacuums that sit under the wooden dresser in their master bedroom filled the room with black smoke.
Schmitz's husband grabbed the non-smoking machine.
"I grabbed the other one," Schmitz said. "One was clearly having a problem. I had to rush it downstairs and rush it out the front door. We have a wooden deck outside in the back. I didn't want to put it in the garage. I kind of just threw it on our front porch."
The door slammed behind Schmitz and then only seconds later, you can hear a loud boom and see billowing smoke on the family's doorbell Ring camera coming from the vacuum.
It's one of five Eufy robo vacs the family owns.
They needed to steam clean their whole house after the fire. The smell of burnt plastic still overwhelmed the burnt robot on Tuesday. It even burned through the serial number on the bottom.
There have been similar fires in Canada and on the East Coast from combusting lithium batteries.
Eufy recalled a number of its battery packs in 2023 though not this particular model. The family called Eufy and has tried for days to get in touch with the company Anker which owns them.
They received in part this voicemail on Tuesday morning from a customer service supervisor with Eufy.
"We can talk about your robo vac and we will go over those options when we speak," the voicemail said. "I'll try you back a bit later. Thanks."
Peng Bai is the head of the Battery Analytical Investigation (BAI) group at Washington University in St. Louis.
In terms of how an explosion like this can even happen, he emphasized that "when you use a battery, you can accumulate gases in your battery because of the set of reactions." Leading to swelling and poor health of the battery which can result in a dangerous situation.
Bai said that if a fire like this happens to you, don't put it out with water. Instead, grab a fire extinguisher or if possible, pour sand on it.
"This is probably a much bigger problem than they've communicated to us and than what a lot of people are aware of," Schmitz said.
Her family filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and the Missouri attorney general.
Meanwhile, 5 On Your Side reached out to Anker and Eufy multiple times and have yet to hear back.