how stupid is this?

[Destrus]

some months ago we got a letter from the electric company saying to remove the batteries from our thermostat because they can leak and cause a fire. today we got another letter and this plastic placeholder thing with a warning about batteries on it to put in place of the batteries. when i went to put it in i noticed a warning tag in there. it said not to put batteries in because it could leak and start a fire >_>.

it's not like the batteries in there before were some special batteries either, they were just normal duracell. also, the guy that installed the thermostat apparently put them in there in the first place. not even gonna think about why there's a place for batteries in there when they already know about the problem.