Guides · 10 min read

Anchoring a dresser in a rented apartment, without losing the deposit

The strap is in the box because federal rules put it there, and the commission says to use it on every piece with drawers. In a rental the wall belongs to somebody else. What the anchor actually needs from the wall, and how to leave a hole the size of a picture hook.

There is a strap in the box. It is there because a federal rule put it there: a dresser 27 inches or taller, weighing 30 pounds or more, made after the first of September 2023, has to pass three stability tests and ship with an anti-tip device, and our fabric dressers of that height do. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which wrote the rule, also runs a campaign called Anchor It! whose whole message fits in one sentence: anchor all furniture with drawers, doors and shelves, and every TV, to the wall. The strap in the box does nothing in the box. In a rented apartment the wall belongs to somebody else, and the job can still be done, leaving a hole the size of a picture hook.

Why the strap exists, in the commission's words

A dresser tips when weight goes forward of its feet. A child pulls out the bottom drawer and stands on it, pulls out the next and reaches up, and the centre of gravity of a 40-inch chest walks forward until it is over the toe. The commission's phrase for how fast this happens is that it happens in the blink of an eye, and a decade of the campaign has brought what it calls a dramatic decline in tip-over incidents without ending them. The STURDY rule makes the dresser itself harder to tip, with a clothing load test, a ten-pound horizontal pull and a test on carpet with a child's weight on an open drawer; the strap is the part that makes tipping impossible rather than merely hard.

The rule covers clothing storage units, which is the commission's name for dressers and chests of drawers in a bedroom. It does not cover a bookshelf, a TV stand, a bathroom cabinet or a file cabinet, and the campaign covers all of them: anything with drawers, doors or shelves is on the list, and a flat-screen TV on top of any of them is the heaviest thing in the room that a child can pull.

What the anchor actually needs from the wall

The strap is a length of nylon or steel cable with a bracket at each end. One bracket screws to the wall, one to the back of the dresser, and the strap between them is tightened until the dresser cannot lean. The wall end is the only part that matters, and it needs one thing: a screw into something solid. In an apartment that is a wood stud behind the drywall, 16 inches apart on centre in most American walls, or the drywall itself with an anchor made for it. A screw into bare drywall between studs will hold the dresser until the day it is needed and then pull out, which is the one outcome worse than no strap.

A stud finder is a ten-dollar tool and the commission lists it with the drill and the screwdriver as what the job takes. Run it across the wall at the height of the top of the dresser; it beeps at the edges of a stud, and the middle of the stud is where the screw goes. If there is no stud where the dresser stands, a toggle bolt or a self-drilling drywall anchor rated for the pull is the alternative, and the rating is printed on its packet. The screw that came in the box is a wood screw for a stud; it is not a drywall anchor.

The five steps, and the one hole

The commission's five steps are these. Fix the wall bracket to the stud at a height just below the top of the dresser. Push the dresser back against the wall. Fix the second bracket to the back of the dresser, high up, into the frame rather than the fabric. Run the strap between the two brackets. Tighten it and tug: if the dresser moves, tighten again. On a fabric dresser the frame is steel and the back rail is where the bracket goes, with the short screws from the kit through the wood top rail if the steel is too thin to bite.

The hole this leaves in the wall is one screw hole, three-sixteenths of an inch across, at about 40 inches off the floor. It is smaller than the hole a picture hook leaves and it is behind the dresser. On moving day it takes a fingertip of spackle, a wipe with a damp cloth and a dab of the paint the landlord left in the closet, and it is gone before the deposit inspection. A drywall anchor leaves a larger hole, about half an inch, and the same fingertip of spackle fills it. Neither is the kind of damage a lease means.

The lease, and what it usually says

Most residential leases forbid alterations and permit ordinary wear, and a screw hole for a picture is ordinary wear in every jurisdiction we know of. A screw hole for an anchor is the same hole. Where a lease is explicit about wall fixings, the landlord is being asked to weigh one small hole against a dresser that can fall on a child, and the commission's own campaign page is the document to send. Some leases now require anchoring; some landlords supply it. Ask, in writing, before the dresser arrives, and keep the answer with the lease.

Pieces that are not dressers

A bookshelf is anchored the same way and needs it more, because a five-tier shelf loaded from the top is the most top-heavy thing in most apartments. The strap goes to the top rail and the wall, and the heavy books go on the bottom tiers whether the strap is on or not. A TV stand is anchored twice, once for the stand and once for the TV: the television gets its own strap from the back of the set to the wall, because a stand that cannot tip can still have a TV pulled off it. A file cabinet on casters is the exception, since it rolls rather than tips, and the commission's advice is to keep the casters locked and the heavy drawer at the bottom.

A mirror on a stand is furniture too. Our arched full-length mirrors come with a stand that leans them at a slight angle and a bracket that hangs them flat, and in a household with a child the bracket is the one to use. A leaning 63-inch mirror is a sheet of glass waiting for a hand on its frame.

The strap in the box does nothing in the box. The wall end needs one thing: a screw into something solid.

The order of the job

• Find the stud behind where the dresser will stand, at the height of its top, with a stud finder; mark the middle of the stud.
• If there is no stud, buy a toggle or self-drilling drywall anchor rated above the pull on its packet; do not use the wood screw from the kit in bare drywall.
• Fix the wall bracket, push the dresser back, fix the dresser bracket high into the frame, run the strap, tighten, tug.
• Anchor the bookshelf, the TV stand and the TV as well; load shelves from the bottom.
• On moving day, spackle the one hole, wipe, touch up with the landlord's paint.