Review on Cumbor Black Baby Gate: Mom'S Choice Award Winner For Safe And Secure Dog And Toddler Proofing by Shane Schobinger

Despite the fact that this is a nice-looking and solid gate when properly installed, I give it just 1 star because their specifications and instructions have two very serious errors that made what should have been a quick-and-simple installation into a nightmare.I wanted the 'drill' installation option because this gate is to hold back a large dog. They conveniently included a drilling template; you just hang the template on the door frame, mark the holes, and drill and screw in the cups. Piece of cake. It took me just a couple minutes to solidly install the four cups.Then I tried to install the gate into the cups. Oops. Nothing fit right, either vertically or horizontally. After scratching my head a little, I got out my tape measure, carefully laid the drilling template on the table, and measured the distance between the marked drill holes. 28 1/4 inches. Then I measured the distance between the mounting holes on the gate. 28 5/8 inches. Their drilling template was wrong by almost a half inch! How the heck did they manage that? If you're going to include a drilling template, a nice touch, it had better be correct, right? So I had to remove the two top cups, mark the holes using my tape measure instead of their bad template, drill again, and remount the cups.Then came an even bigger nightmare, though it won't affect everyone. Their specs show that the minimum door width is 29.7 inches (though 29.5 appears in larger print several other places). Before I ordered this gate I measured my door, and it just made it: 29.75 inches. Close, but within their spec.Unfortunately, this spec does not allow for the lips on the cups. It would work (barely) if you did not use the cups. However, their instructions repeatedly state that the mounting cups are necessary, and I agree. The lip on each cup is about 1/4 inch, so really the minimum door width is closer to about 30 1/4 inches. My door was significantly too narrow for the gate to fit. Of course I had already ripped apart the shipping box, so returning it was no longer a practical option. I had to improvise.I came up with an awkward but reasonable alternative. I used heavy-duty diagonal cutters and a sharp file to trim away a semicircle of lip on each of the cups, making the edge flush with the bottom of the cups for half of the circumference. I loosened the screws enough for me to rotate the cups, and I did so in such a way that the trimmed part of each cup was facing the installation direction. This let me slip the gate into place, after which I used needle-nose pliers to rotate the cups so that the trimmed edge was facing downward, largely invisible, rather than facing out, which would allow the gate to break free. Finally, I used the pliers to hold the now loose cups in place while I tightened the gate bolts.Wow, what a mess, all because they misstated the minimum door width on their specs, and provided a drilling template that was wrong by almost a half inch. There's just no excuse for such sloppiness in a hundred-dollar gate.ADDENDUM FROM A FEW DAYS LATER: My anger at this gate continues. There are several prominent warning stickers, one bright orange. I finally got around to peeling them off for the sake of appearance. No way. The stickers are glued on with some kind of insanely strong glue so they don't readily peel off. Removing them is incredibly tedious, as they come off in little pieces that have to be individually scraped off. And they leave behind a sticky residue. Tomorrow I'll have to soak them with concentrated rubbing alcohol in the hope that it will loosen the glue enough to get the gum off. Why, why, why can't they use the same glue that's normally used for stickers that's weak enough to let them just peel off? Why do they have to use something so strong that you have to slowly chip away at them? Crazy.