The City of Chicago has been investigating sales of new and refurbished mattresses which are infested with bed bugs, and has closed one store, NBC Chicago reports.
At least five stores in the Chicago area sold new or refurbished mattresses containing bedbugs, city officials said Thursday.
The stores include Mike’s Furniture, Best Mattress Company, TC Furniture, Guadalajara Furniture and Chicago Mattress. One of the stores, Best Mattress Company, has been shut down.
City officials launched the investigation after receiving a litany of complaints from itchy and sleep-deprived customers.”This is an issue of taking advantage of consumers,” said Commissioner Norma Reyes with the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. “Particularly the most-vulnerable consumers in the City of Chicago — seniors and people with limited income.”
At least one of the stores disputed the charge,
All but one of the mattress stores refused to comment. Chicago Mattress said it disputes the city’s findings.
“I’ve been in business for 13 years and I’ve never had a problem until now,” said owner Andy Shifrin.
Alas, that’s how it is with bed bugs: they were not a problem. And now they are spreading like wildfire.
Chicagoans, check out “Consumer Watch: Purchasing a Mattress in Chicago” (click to download the PDF flyer from Chicago’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection).
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This doesn’t surprise me in the least. Just go into any flea market, or craiglist for that matter, and take a look around. There are “dealers” of used bedding everywhere. If i were to take a guess I would say about 30% of all mattress sales are used goods.
The larger retailers sell of the returns from their customer’s to used bed retailers. The problem is those retailers weren’t properly labeling the beds, and in a few instances (i can see several on craigslist now, they recover the beds like they are “new”, when there is a dirty, possibly bug invested mattress below.
There will always be a market however for this business, it’s nice to see however that it’s being a little better regulared given how horrible the bed bug problem has developed into.