Continuing from Wednesday…
A badly infested mattress could easily stand out, but a newly infested mattress with tiny eggs or tiny nymphs could be missed by the untrained eye. Bed bug infested mattresses that are not encased in some sort of protective cover could easily transmit bed bugs onto the delivery team which could then transfer them onto their truck, then onto the other new mattresses, or even into other homes that they still must make deliveries to.
In the United States, it is common practice for mattress companies to offer mattress take-away services when a new mattress is purchased. Discarded mattresses are placed alongside new mattresses which allow for the easy transfer of bed bugs. Even if the new mattresses are wrapped in plastic, delivery teams will make many trips in and out of the delivery truck throughout the day, continuously moving new and old mattresses within the truck. With this practice, no mattress company can guarantee any consumer that they will be receiving a bed bug free mattress. Delivery teams will then make their way inside the homes of consumers and could potentially be harboring hitchhiking bed bugs on their clothing, shoes, the plastic wrapping, or even inside the wrapping if there was a breach in the packaging.
In researching mattress purchasing and delivery options in the United States, I have only found one company that guaranteed their products to be bed bug free as they do not offer take away services in any of their delivery trucks. If that service is requested, a separate company is then hired for an additional cost to the consumer. Every store should heed the warnings about bed bug infestations by pest control experts and develop strict guidelines to eliminate the transfer of bed bugs!