Review on Pet Products Thermo Pet Heated Mocha by Melody Kershaw

I don't know if I've ever written a review in my life but I felt like I HAD to warn other cat owners. I just received this pad, connected and tested with the pad according to the instructions. Everything seemed great. It took my cat a while to figure out that if she stayed on it long enough she would get warm, but she eventually did and spent most of the evening on it (she's older and will stick to anything warm, like velcro ). As soon as she got up she had to snuggle up to me and I immediately smelled a REALLY strong chemical smell, like a flea collar. It was with HER but she had nowhere else to pick it up so I leaned over to sniff the new bed (mat) and my god! The smell was actually coming from the heating pad and "soaking through" the wool sheet I had on my bed, the bedspread, the styrofoam, and was SO MUCH coming from the heating pad itself that I was only inhaling it at close range *me* (a 200 -pound-man ) felt very bad almost immediately too. This in turn makes me REALLY nervous about how sick he can make a 10 lb cat lay directly on top of him for hours. I pulled it out and spent the next half hour desperately trying to clean my cat's soft belly where it lay (anyone with a cat can guess how well this worked) before she could lick anything toxic - again the smell is *disturbing* like a flea collar and I know some flea products are VERY toxic to cats so I'm going to go nuts all night now that it's a similar chemical and that she was poisoned (she already has kidney disease) . FYI I've also inspected all parts of the bed/mat to make sure it hasn't overheated, foam melted etc, but there's no sign of a unique defect that could have caused this - the entire heating pad just stinks like heaven. Terrible experience and it's a shame because I loved the idea of an automatic thermostat and did a lot of research to choose this heated bed. Needless to say I am returning it immediately. Buyers, be careful if your cat is older and will be spending a lot of time with her!