Retail Stores Continue To Be Slammed By Bed Bugs Part II Of II

Continuing from Wednesday…

Bloomingdale’s also confirmed this week information about their own bed bug encounter…slightly.  In a statement released to the media they reported that they found “one bed bug”.  They further reported the following information, “We identified it and removed it promptly. We conducted a thorough search of the area, including the use of dogs trained to spot bed bug locations. We are confident that we have thoroughly addressed the problem.”  The problem here is that when you have one bed bug, you likely have more bed bugs.  Bloomingdale’s NYC flagship store is absolutely gigantic!  Like with Macy’s, bed bugs would have their pick of  thousands of choice spots to hide and multiply if they are there.  Additionally, retail establishments cannot assume that if they find one bed bug, that that bed bug happened to drop off of a person who was shopping in their store.  The simple fact is that there is no way of knowing where the “one bed bug” came from.  If one, a few, or hundreds of bed bugs are found in a retail establishment, the entire building should be treated by pest control…and then treated again!

I read an article today about a scary new tactic that could be used between retailers.  The article told of how retailers could easily sabotage each others businesses by anonymously claiming that a competitor has bed bugs in their store.  Similar situations have happened before, just not with bed bugs…yet.  Since shoppers are on high alert with the recent bed bug outbreaks, this type of retail sabotage could cause an all out panic among consumers and would certainly drive customers away, no matter if the news was true or false.  Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.