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The famed Apple store on 5th Avenue isn't just crawling with thousands of tourists– it's also been crawling with bed bugs for nearly a month, The Post has learned.
This past Friday, after weeks of bed bug sightings, a critter was spotted in the manager's office, sending desperate employees into a frenzy, terrified they'd bring the pest home with them.
"It was just mayhem," an employee told The Post.
"There was a mass exodus... employees were freaking out they felt really unsafe and management kept giving them the runaround."
Staff were ordered to double bag their belongings in plastic while a "bed bug sniffing beagle" came to the store where it was "activated" by two lockers in a staff area.
"I shouldn't have to go to work feeling unsafe and unprotected," one worker told The Post.
"We felt very anxious, used and unimportant, like we were just another number."
One worker said the issue has been going on for "nearly a month" and "Friday was the first day they acknowledged they found something."
The employee said the issue started about three to four weeks ago during the overnight hours at the 24-hour store, which frequently has homeless visitors, when a table on the second floor was "cordoned off" because a bed bug was found, believed to have come from one of the homeless visitors.
The table was left cordoned off while employees and customers were allowed in the store and around the table with no warning of the bed bug threat, an employee said.
"No one could go to that table but it was still on the floor, if a customer leaned on it and they didn't know" a bug could've crawled on them, the worker said.
https://nypost.com/2019/04/15/the-5th-ave-apple-store-has-been-crawling-with-bed-bugs/
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 16 2019, @08:50PM (22 children)
You're holding it wrong...
Seriously, what management needs to do is figure out which staff have bedbugs in their apartment and if they're a valued employee help them to eradicate them, or move.
Meanwhile, affected employees should scrub before reporting, similar to the protocol in Sound of my Voice: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748207/ [imdb.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @09:03PM
they need Courage!
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday April 16 2019, @09:30PM (7 children)
RTFA. They were probably brought in by vagrants using the store as a shelter at night, it being open 24hr.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @09:39PM (4 children)
Where "probably" isn't supported by anything other than your prejudices and insecurities: "must be the smelly homeless guy".
Whadda ya think, probably illegal "bad hombre" immigrants too?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @10:44PM (2 children)
No. The illegals just bring in Lice and TB.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:13PM (1 child)
Bedbugs are an epidemic in New York. Being homeless is not at all necessary to contract or transmit them. Sometimes all it takes is for somebody who has them, often unwittingly, to set his bag next to yours or hang his coat on the hook next to yours.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:39PM
How is the problem being dealt with?
Flamethrowers?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday April 17 2019, @08:45AM
Again, RTFA (which means Read The Fucking Article in case you didn't know). Here, to save you bothering, here's what it said :
It would not have occured to me that it was probably caused that way unless the article had suggested it, because it would never have occurred to me that an Apple store would have provided accomodation for the homeless at night. It hardly fits the hipster image they want to project.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:13AM (1 child)
If TFA is proposing that vagrants using the store as shelter managed to infest two employee lockers with bedbugs, that Apple store is a lot more friendly to vagrants than ANY store I have ever visited on 5th Avenue.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:31AM
Bed bugs do move around. It doesn't require a TFA proposal.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Tuesday April 16 2019, @09:34PM (1 child)
There was an infestation in an office building I work in (several floors away.)
That was dealt with expeditiously and the company stated that it would provide a service to come and clear out any infestations experienced by employees.
Pretty decent considering.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:14PM
It is very decent. The bedbug-detecting dogs and exterminators can cost thousands of dollars.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday April 16 2019, @10:00PM (7 children)
Not having seen the scrubbing scene in question, I can't say how effective it would be - but if they're cleaning their body, the answer is almost certainly "not at all".
Bedbugs are so difficult to eradicate in large part because they're almost impossible to bait, and don't stay anywhere near people by choice, except when feeding (which they only do when their prey is completely immobile while deeply asleep). If they're coming to work with you, it's because after feeding they hid in your clothing, bag, cell-phone, etc. (quite likely inside the seams). To kill them you have to cool them to 0F for most of a week, or raise their temperature above ~120F for several hours. Or expose them directly to various poisons - DDT is one of the very few that can kill them through contact with treated surfaces. None of which is terribly conductive to a quick decontamination that doesn't destroy your stuff. (they can also survive 4-6 months without eating, and the females are born pregnant, which lets them spread very effectively, but isn't directly relevant to decontamination of personal effects)
What can I say - I lived in Denver for a few years where they had some serious bedbug outbreaks - I read up on the little bastards, and almost wish I hadn't. Then again, I love shopping thrift stores, and always putting my finds in a tightly sealed bag in the freezer for a week after purchase may have saved me a lot of headaches.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:15AM
The scrubbing scene involved leaving all possessions and clothing behind before going to visit "the one." Agreed, the soap and water isn't for bedbug control, but wearing a sterilized hospital gown and carrying nothing of your own with you should be somewhat effective.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:19AM (2 children)
I've bought most of my work clothes from thrift stores over the past 5 years ($3 shirts, $4 pants... as compared to $15+ on the best of retail sales, and over $100 per article if you just buy what looks attractive on the rack from the who cares what it costs stores... yeah, my work clothes do come from the thrift stores.)
So far, zero problems with infestation of any sort. Of course, we're not buying bedding, pillows or those kind of things. The clothing mostly looks nearly new, and a trip through the professional cleaners costs more than the clothing itself. We do usually wash it at home before use, but I doubt that has ever made a difference.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:00AM
So do mine - it seems a total waste to buy new clothes when mountains of almost-new clothing is thrown away every day.
A lot of it probably depends on the local infestation level and cleaning practices. At any rate - if you routinely run clothes through a hot drier before adding them to you wardrobe, you're probably doing a pretty decent decontamination.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:46PM
Saving $10?
Wow.
Okay.
You are lucky.
If you contract bird mites you could be spending $250+ per month. Everything will need to be washed before you can wear it. Everything should be extra long dried in a tumble drier. Clothes will need to be worn within a day or two of washing. Once you have bird mites getting rid of them is next to impossible. Your washer or dryer may die every two years or so from the excessive use. You will not be able to have close friends. You will have to part from family or risk infecting them. You won't be able to have pets.
Buy clothes from a thift store? You would have to be insane.
(Score: 1) by crahman on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:17AM (2 children)
Born pregnant? An interesting but absurd thought. Those freshly laid bedbug eggs do not contain fertilized eggs within themselves.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:35PM (1 child)
No eggs, but sperm.
Bedbug reproduction is... brutal, to say the least. Rather than mating normally (which is possible but rare), the males have evolved to stab through the females' exoskeleton and inject their sperm directly into her abdomen, where it remains in her hemolymph (blood-analog) until it encounters a mature, unfertilized egg. As a result, mating too often will kill her due the multiple stab wounds, and additional sperm will migrate into already fertilized eggs as they are "ripened" with nutrients from the hemolymph in preparation for laying.
I suppose technically that means they're not actually born pregnant, just inseminated. But either way an isolated freshly-hatched female will lay several fertilized eggs without having ever been mated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @07:11AM
Let's hope incels don't evolve to use that technique
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 16 2019, @11:34PM (2 children)
You missed this bit:
That is because they really are unimportant, and just another number. Why would management care?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:23AM (1 child)
Well, I said what management needs to do is identify the actual source of the bugs, and that's most likely an underpaid employee's cheap (for the city) apartment. That's not caring about the employees, that's caring about the image of the store.
On the other hand, what management should do is either A) terminate the source of the problem if they're not much of an asset anyway, or B) in the (rare) instance where the underpaid employee is an actual asset to the store, they should help them through the bedbug problem so they can continue to be an asset in the store.
Of course, management themselves are underpaid, neglected and abused flunkies of the bigger organization, so why should they care about anything but collecting their paychecks until they find a better gig?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:10AM
That all sounds totally cynical.
I'm sure you're entirely correct. Unfortunately.