Bed bugs living in new or refurbished mattress

As we went through the other mattresses, we found more of the tell-tale stains and plenty of grime but no more bedbugs, dead or alive. 

We returned to Brooklyn Sleep Products and bought ten more mattresses -- twins and full-sized -- for an average of $40 each.

"Find your bees," Jeff instructed Gidget, the bedbug sniffing beagle, who worked on one end while Rick and Jeff worked on the other. 

"I got a bug," Jeff exclaimed.

We found a live bedbug and an unhatched egg.

Rick, pointing at the mattress, said "This spot right here and this spot right here, these two sort of reddish spots are eye spots. That tells us that we have a growing embryo inside this egg."

There was a little hatchling, translucent and small enough to squeeze through the stitch holes in the mattress seams. It came from a growing family.

"Probably, there was more there if we had looked harder," said Rick.

When we brought Gidget around to that end of the mattress, she agreed.

"That's a good girl!"

In our investigation in 1996, Dr. Philip Tierno, Director of Clinical Microbiology at New York University, had tested our mattresses and was shocked at the levels of fungi and bacteria he found, pointing out "We had eclubziella growing."

So this year we sent him new samples from the factories we visited in Florida, California and New York. 

"Ten years ago, we found similar fungi," said Dr. Tierno. "In one of these cases, the fungi here were far in excess of what we found 10 years ago."

All of the samples were contaminated -- including those from mattresses made in California, which has strict laws and enforcement.  The testing revealed traces of urine, fecal matter, at least seven different fungi, most of which are potentially harmful to children, the elderly, anyone with a compromised immune system.

We asked Dr. Tierno, "Did you think maybe in the ensuing years that something would be done, that maybe these reconditioned mattresses might be in better shape?"

"No," he said. "I considered that in 10 years they would be eliminated from society."

The dirtiest mattresses we found came from the Brooklyn Sleep Products factory -- the factory that sold us the mattress containing live bedbugs.

Eleven years ago, we asked owner Francisco Chavez how he cleaned the reconditioned mattresses.

We went back again recently with the results of our latest investigation.

He wasn't surprised, and he showed us boxes of Sterifab, the disinfectant he uses.   We showed him our video of the so-called sterilized mattresses we bought from him.

We asked him, "There was urine, fecal matter, fungi, bacteria ...  What do you think about this?"

"That says used material," Chavez said. "We clean, we sterilize it."

When Dateline objected that it doesn't say there could be bedbugs, Chavez replied "Go to the city if you have a complaint."

We did go see what New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs had to say.  Director Jonathan Mintz blames the state for ignoring the issue.

"They haven't passed the rules telling dealers how they have to sanitize their mattresses."

He says 10 years ago the state passed a law requiring sterilization of reconditioned bedding but then never bothered to pass regulations on how to do that.

"The retailers are out there using their own best judgment rather than following state rules," Mintz said.

Still, his department came out against a recent proposed ban on rebuilt mattresses, saying it penalized the poor.

"For a lot of people used mattresses are the right economic choice for them.  And you have to be very careful before you take that product away from them."

Dateline asked whether just because a family is poor they had to settle for a mattress full of fecal matter, bacteria and fungi.

"Nobody would ever knowingly buy a contaminated mattress," said Mintz.  "That's not a rational choice."

We asked him, "How much contamination is enough or how many bedbugs do you need to do something?"

"That's the right question.  And the state needs to answer it," said Mintz.

The New York Department of State declined our request for an interview  but did e-mail us a statement saying "It takes information about improper activity on the part of licensees very seriously ... and that the department has no outstanding complaints but now plans a full investigation given our findings ... And is reviewing the statute and the need for stronger regulations."

This time around, every reconditioned mattress we tested was contaminated, but only one had live bedbugs.    

Dateline asked Jeff White, "Are we overstating the problem here?  We only found one live bedbug and some eggs."

White replied, "If I have a chance of buying a mattress and there is a 5% chance that it's infested with bedbugs, that's too high for me."

His colleague Rick Cooper agrees.

"I don't so much care whether it's five percent, 10 percent, or 30 percent infestation rate," says Cooper. "There's not supposed to be live bugs inside of the mattress when you buy it."

In the end, Rick Cooper says that with bedbugs creeping slowly to a bed near you, buying a reconditioned mattress can be anything but a good deal.

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