Man what a great topic!
This forum is great, for all the variety of subjects covered...although I have YET to see the thread about yard care and lawnmower repair!
Years ago I drove for a wholesale hardware distributor...and of course we delivered ladders along with all the other products.
Ladders can easily get damaged in truck shipping: pallets shift, freight moves around, forklift drivers are in a hurry....so when we handed a ladder off the tailgate, we always had to make a quick inspection.
If there was even so much as a bend, a dent, a crack, (on the wooden and fiberglass ones) or a slightly bent 'foot'...back on the trailer it went! Yep...liability!
When the returns, called 'claims', made it back to the warehouse our returns guy would saw the wooden ones in half after removing the metal braces, lengthwise, (right thru every step) and cut the aluminum and fiberglass ones up with a sawzall, before tossing them in the large industrial dumpster at the warehouse. The piece with the labeling was saved as proof for tax credit.
Because: IF somebody scavenged a defective but intact ladder from the trash and then got hurt on it later, WE and the manufacturer could be hit with a giant lawsuit!
I managed to get 6 of them in about 4 years before he could cut them up, with his winking permission, and repair them. I still have them all except for one, 30 years later.
My advise on ladders is this, and take it or leave it as you see fit:
Buy one locally, at a big box store or a small hardware store...look it over and especially look at the 'feet', the bracing, and the hardware....any little bend or crack, pass it up. Or, if you get one directly thru e-commerce, DOUBLE check it before you accept it.
Your injury-free future may depend on it!
