Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We did a practice run from a 1st story window, which was a good idea. Incident 1: On the first attempt, we released the ladder and all the rungs were facing the wrong direction. Had it been a real fire, we probably would have used it like that, which certainly would make it harder but not impossible to get down. Incident 2: We carefully repacked the ladder and tried again with the ladder in the correct orientation. Our child climbed down without incident. My wife started down but as she got partway down, the hooks slipped off the window sill! Fortunately, the hooks caught on the window frame and she did not fall. Being vinyl, the window frame is not all that strong. Had it been myself (50 lbs more) there is a good chance the frame would have broken. I wasn't about to try it though. We have fairly standard window trim and there was nothing to suggest we had not properly hung the ladder. I did find a slightly different way to place the hooks that may be more secure; at that point I did not want to risk another attempt. I guess I'm going to keep the ladder and hope we never have to use it. About half a dozen of the plastic end caps from the rungs fell off during our testing. This doesn't really affect the usability of the ladder but it adds to the impression that this is not a carefully designed product.