Comment by bigstrat2003

I don't know what to tell you. I'm older than you. I've seen it happen 20-30 times in my life. I've seen batteries leak in flashlights, clock radios (the backup battery), wall clocks, calculators, cameras, remote controls, thermostats, wireless mouse, and so on.

A few years ago, I had an unopened pack of 8xAA Duracell alkalines. They had expiration dates on them, and had 2-3 years left. Two of the batteries were leaking in the pack.

Over the past 15 years, I have gradually migrated almost everything to NiMH. I don't see leaking batteries anymore in my house. But go to a thrift store, e.g. Goodwill, and open up the battery compartments of things. Many of them will have been destroyed by the leaking batteries.

I have many times in my less than 40 years of life. Often things that had batteries left in then and forgotten about for a few years, and often with the cheap batteries something came with. Often with kids toys, TV remotes and rarely used flashlights. If you're the kind of person that takes batteries out when you put things away or you change the batteries somewhat soon after they die you likely never had any leak.

I have a Canon AE-1 that takes a 4LR44 to operate the light meter. When I got it the battery had deteriorated significantly, causing a lot of damage to the battery area. I had to remake the battery contacts cutting and soldering in new springs and pads as the corrosion had practically completely eaten the old ones. That was probably the most notable leak I've encountered. But the previous owners didn't even know there was a battery in it, so it likely had that battery in there for a decade or more.

I have seen every kind of common alkaline battery size leak acid or have corrosion. 9V, AA, AAA, C, D. It helps that I used to fix broken things for a living, I guess.

Can’t recall if I’ve seen a CR2032 leak acid or corrode, but I think I have.