Sleepy's Exec Says Bedbugs Come From People
Buried in the controversy surrounding the exit of consumer reporter George Gombossy from the Hartford Courant was his article that looks at complaints against mattress company Sleepy's. We though this bit of wisdom from Sleepy's COO was worth repeating:
Adam S. Blank, Sleepy's general counsel and chief operating officer, said last month Sleepy's was unaware of Blumenthal's investigation and said bedbugs do not originate in beds, but come from people.
We didn't know any executives today still believed in spontaneous generation, but apparently Blank does. Worms come from mud, maggots come from meat, and bedbugs come from people.
Less funny is Blank's threat to anyone who suspects Sleepy's has sold them a used or infested mattress and reports it:
"Sleepy's does not now, has never, and will never, sell a used mattress. Any claim to the contrary we find to be defamatory," wrote Blank.
The investigation Blank is referring to involves a man and his wife who received a box spring in which the outer plastic wrapping had been opened before delivery. Shortly after delivery, they began noticing tell-tale bug bites each morning.
They hired the Stern Environmental Group of Secaucus, N.J. to investigate and to exterminate the bugs. The company – which specializes in ridding homes of bedbugs – dismantled the box spring and determined that it was the cause of the infestation, Maier said.
Stern Environmental Group's report, made available to me, states that the "box spring … was the culprit. There were bedbugs inside and the box spring did not look like it was new."
Thankfully, now we know that all of these people are lying, because bedbugs come from people.
"Sleepy's: The bedbug column The Courant refused to publish about its prime advertiser" [CTWatchdog]
(Images: Barbarellaa, beneneuman)
Post a comment
Comments:
the only way bed bugs come from people is when they hitch a ride on luggage or a person. land on a new bed and voila, home sweet home. But it's not like the bed bugs sprouted out of the people, neither did the bugs sprout from the bed.
Reminds me of the classic Neil Hamburger joke - Did you hear about the pregnant bedbug? She gave birth in the spring.
That's Dopey. If the Doc says I have bedbugs, I'm not going to be Happy, and I'm not going to be Bashful about saying so. This just makes me Grumpy.
People need to be vigilant about bedbug infested mattresses even when they are clearly new-- mattress companies often truck out used mattresses in the same truck next to new mattresses to be delivered. Easy for the bugs to hitch a ride on a new mattress (they multiply with alarming frequency) unless the new mattress is sealed up really, really well.
If Sleepy's truly is innocent, there'd be a lawsuit by now.
@floraposte: Come on floraposte, you couldn't work Sleepy into a mattress story? ;)
2 Ds, 2Ss and three emotions - Doc & Dopey, Sleepy, Sneezy, Happy Grumpy Bashful... learned in Disney training. ;)
Short of spontaneous generation, maybe he meant bedbugs evolved from people?
@fantomesq: Sleepy's the one who's causing the trouble in the first place. I left out Sneezy because I got Lazy.
It seems quite reasonable to me that the beds might not be used, but are being contaminated by contact of multiple old & new mattresses via the delivery truck, packing blankets, or employees themselves (clothes). In healthcare it's called cross-contamination. I wonder if the practice of hauling out the old in the same truck that hauls in the new has caused some of this. These trucks often have lots of old matresses in the same truck with the new.
So I'm assuming Sleepy's is now filing a lawsuit against the Stern Environmental Group for their report and their assessment of the condition of the box spring.
That is the only logical next course according to Adam S. Blank, Sleepy's CEO.
Of course, when he doesn't file, I'd like to know why....
wasn't there a story similar to this on like 20/20 a few years back?
where the company was getting old mattresses, stripping off the outer material, maybe adding a little stuffing, sewing on new outer material and tags, sealing it in new plastic, and calling it a new mattress? ...and some of them had bedbugs inside--the outer material was a tight enough weave the larvae couldn't get through, but the holes from sewing were just right. they only sold 'new' mattresses too. but the main point to the story was bed bugs and consumer laws about reselling matresses, not the specific company.
@Applekid: What are you, retarded or something? Everybody knows bedbugs evolved from beds.
Duuuuhhhhh.
Sleepy's went so far overboard trying to protect their public image that hundreds of thousands of people have now read online about their bedbug-infested"new" mattresses.
You've gotta love it.
Wow. Stating up-front that any accusation is "defamation," makes it sound as though they have something to hide and they know it.
So much for giving them the benefit of the doubt. Implied threats of defamation lawsuits pretty much throw that right out the window.
People and old bedding are carriers.
Remember, if you sleep in strange (bad) places you are bound to carry some undesirable elements home with you.
Yes, I remember some investigative news program doing that story. People would drive around in their pickups and collect thrown out mattresses at the curb and in dumpsters. Then they would sell them to the mattress factory. I seem to recall the focus being on folks having allergy problems from mattresses that had absorbed major quantities of various bodily fluids.
Church told me bedbugs evolving from beds is a lie propagated by the secular scientific conspiracy.
@wvFrugan:
Actually makes lot of sense. Especially as the BedBugs can lie dormant for long periods of time. Which means the truck itself could be a carrier of BedBugs as much as normal stuff.
A little bedbug education is in order.
Speaking from experience having recently dealt with a bedbug infestation, bedbugs spread by people. With the increase in bedbug infestations, bedbugs can be picked up in movie theaters, public transportation, restaurants, hotels, apartments, dorms, nursing homes, moving and delivery vans - essentially any public place.
Here is how these parasites exist. A bedbug or a bedbug egg is introduced into a persons living environment by any number of means - someones clothing (they will hide in the clothes seams), their shoes, by a piece of furniture, in a cardboard box, luggage or any item that a has been in an invested environment. It doesn't even have to be something brought in. It could be very possible the delivery person who delivered the bed could have carried a bug or egg on their clothes or shoes (if, say, they were removing a bed from an invested environment and it was in the same delivery van as the new bed). The first thing the bug will do in their new digs is find a small crevice to wedge themselves into. If its an egg, the person about to be inFested won't even notice it (it is that small).
The next thing they will do is find a food source. They can locate and travel up to a 20 foot radius to find a food source. This is the key to the mattress question. They feed usually at night when their food source is deep in sleep and they can feed unnoticed. Once they have eaten, they will drop off the person and crawl to a new crevice closer to their food source (they don't make any type of permanent home, they go were their food source goes). That would be the mattress seams, inside box spring foundation or the bed frame. In heavy infestations they will hide along the baseboard, behind picture frames, along door and window frames or behind electric socket wall plates.
The main point is that they will not infest a mattress just because its a mattress. They will infest a mattress because their food source slept there. If a person being bitten moves to another location within the home to sleep, the bugs will follow them to the new location. They don't care were they live as long it is near their food source.
The main question that Sleepys has to answer is if the box spring was new or used. If it were used, it could very well have had bedbugs in it (if their food source leaves and they can not find another they will remain dormant for up to 18 months before they die from starvation). If it were new, it is unlikely it had bedbugs in it, although the person delivering it could have infested the buyers home during delivery.
@floraposte: But if you put Sleepy and Sneezy together you get Sleezy which is, in my opinion, what Adam S. Blank is, just like the company he works for.
Hey Adam...you know what you can do with what you said, don't you? In case you don't know it has to do with hiding it in a part of your body.
Adam S. Blank sounds like he's been taking PR lessons from the North Koreans. "Criticize my bedbugs and we will retaliate massively and without cessation!" Or something like that.
@wvFrugan: That is what I thought, too. The bugs come from the trucks. But the new beds come sealed in thick plastic, and when they remove the old bedding, they wrap it into the plastic that the new bedding was just removed from, and tape it up in front of you before they carry it away. I just got a mattress from them and they seemed to do everything by the book (while I was watching at least.) I checked to make sure the new mattress was still factory sealed before signing for it, after what I'd read online. But I doubt they stick to every rule when the homeowner is not standing there watching. The delivery guys are on a crazy schedule and I bet they get rushed. Maybe sometimes they skip the tape. Maybe sometimes they skip the plastic.
Some people may be getting bedbugs by purchasing floor sample store mattresses maybe? They do go on sale every once in a while (ewwww) and are legal to sell.
It's possible they may be repackaging and reselling the "returns" they have that exchange program if you don't like your mattress within a couple of weeks, you can swap it for a different one for a hefty fee. They are supposed to recycle the old one, tear it down and dispose of it properly. I wonder if they always follow through with that?
@StanTheManDean: They say not to keep your luggage on the hotel bed, put it on the nightstand or luggage rack - that is a frequent place they hitch a ride, in luggage. Also read to put your PJ's in a plastic bag before putting them back in your suitcase, and wash them in hot water to kill bugs and chuck the plastic bag when you get home.
What am I doing wrong? Every link I click on brings me to a blank page!?
Note to their COO: shut the hell up, hire a good PR firm and start some real damage control.
@fjordtjie: Yes, I remember the 20/20 story. That was the first thing I thought of when the story here said the company investigating saw signs the box frame did not look new inside.
Sometimes, the definition of a "used" is as evasive as trying to pin Bill Clinton down on the exact definition of "sexual relations".
Many states including Texas have laws covering what makes a mattress "used". These laws are often open to interpritation by retailers. As an example, a floor sample may have been laid on by 1,000 people; however it never was actually slept on in a customer's home.
In Sleepy's case, it isn't the mattress in question; it's the foundation (a.k.a. box spring).
This is a major point since many retailers allow customers to exchange the foundation for a shorter height (low profile) model. This happens more times than you would think: An elderly customer who had a 9" tall old mattress and buys a new 16" tall MegaEuro Pillowtop is shocked to find getting into bed now feels like climbing Mt. Fuji. By switching to a foundation that is 5" shorter, it cuts the overall height difference to a managable level.
My guess is the foundation in question was initially in a bedbug infested house for a day or two (that's all it takes) and exchanged as noted above. In the few weeks it spent back in Sleepy's warehouse, the bedbugs had an orgy and multiplied; however since it had been re-wrapped the bugs were unable to spread to other units.
By the time it was re-delivered to the customer in this story the damage was done.
@Julia789: i read somewhere to put your luggage in a bizarre place, because if the bedbugs hitched a ride on luggage from greenpoint brooklyn (not to slam it but it did have some infestations) and then said person puts luggage on luggage rack, blammo you will be welcoming bedbugs to their new home.
@sponica: Awww heck, now I have to hang my suitcase from the ceiling, or else just fumigate the hotel room with Raid upon arrival. ;-)
The luggage racks are pretty lean - steel and a few webs of nylon. Might be easy enough to check it for bugs? No fluffy spaces to hide like a mattress? But what do I know about bedbugs. It least the luggage rack makes me FEEL like I'm doing something to prevent it, if only in my head. Maybe I'll just put my suitcase on the dresser.
That bedbug looks like a squidbilly
@wvFrugan: Perhaps they need to clean out their trucks. Really, when you think about it, that's seriously gross. How many disgusting old mattresses have been in there, if they offer free hauling of the old bed upon delivery?
In the words of Alfred E. Neuman, "Yecch!"
@StanTheManDean: bed bugs live in dark cracks, like behind pictures. you're not likely to transmit them on your person or in sheets because they are quite large (~1 cm) so you could see and remove them. they usually come out only at night, and then they retreat back to their spaces to digest the blood meal. if you examine your clothes and luggage before putting them on and leave during the day, you're generally safe (unless by some fluke you have eggs or larvae on you, but the likelihood of that is very, very minimal).
@gman863:
Sometimes, the definition of a "used" is as evasive as trying to pin Bill Clinton down on the exact definition of "sexual relations".
You have that exactly backwards. He made the opposing lawyers define "sexual relations," since they were asking the questions. Bubba's got questionable morality, but nobody doubts his smarts.
@mxjohnson: I was thinking the exact same thing. The company's overreaction causes way more harm to them than the initial complaint.
Sounds like an argument for Intelligent Design! :D
@Mobius: Now, if only they can get a contract with Marriott! I can see the advertisements now:
FREE Bedbugs & Rape with every stay!
Here's a plausible scenario:
Sleepy's is stupid enough to unwrap the new boxspring before delivery. So it's sitting in the delivery truck unwrapped.
Sleepy's is happy to haul away old mattresses when they deliver new ones (I don't know if that's true, but it's pretty common for a mattress company.)
Bedbugs from an old mattress that they picked up crawl onto the unwrapped boxspring next to it on the truck.
Purchasers of new, unwrapped boxspring get bedbugs.
I guess this is why the matress sales lady that I dealt with last year said "DO NOT accept the matress if the plastic is opened!"
Does anyone else feel depressed when they walk into a Sleepy's? The one near me at least sucks the life out of you
ummmmm they dont come from the bed, where do they come from?
@PsiCop: Threats of defamation (or slander or libel) are the first step in the handbook of bad lawyering.
So Sleepy's is saying that they have never even possibly accidentally sold one singular used mattress that was returned and maybe accidentally put back into the wrong stack or misidentified in a truck in any of their franchises in all the years they've been open and will never do it in the future?
Bull.
Shit.