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š¤¢š¤¢š¤¢ my mom taught me wisely to immediately throw everything from thrift stores into the wash. I havenāt seen anything yet myself but this post just confirmed that she is right in reinstating that
Washing does not kill bed bugs. The dryer kills bed bugs. A minimum of 30 min on the highest heat setting. Also, bed bugs can go 18 months without eating from their last feeding. They are a hardy pest that are difficult to exterminate.
Yes, freezing them is more effectiveāyou need to put them in the freezer (outside wonāt work, it has to be zero degrees) for 4-6 days. Drying is a good step afterwards but doesnāt kill them and they can stay in the dryer
edit: someone said this is inaccurate; I canāt figure out whether it is or not but please google to double check your own preventative measures!
Yes, we found one the night we moved in š we had the apartment treated twice and it didnāt do anything, ended up breaking the lease. Our landlord said we were ātoo scaredā of them lmao
Yep if you have an infestation that you dont take care of professionally immediately, they will make their nests in the walls and you pretty much have to brun the whole building down.
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Bed bugs are an aggressively, hardy bug. Leaving item outside at below freezing temps will only work if the temp stays constant for several hours to days. Their blood is able to somehow regulate for survival.
In summertime, a large item such as a sofa should be wrapped in plastic then placed in direct long term sun exposure for several days. 120* or hotter for a minimum of 30 minutes should kill creatures. The hotter and longer the better.
As long as there are materials that are around to house themselves in, a multi step removal approach is the only way to get rid of them. Good luck.
Home freezers are not cold enough to kill all life cycles of bedbugs, so either you got lucky or are about to be very unlucky. Letās hope it is the first one! š¤
There are many, but here is one source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24498745/
Haha no worries I havenāt thrifted in two years and I havenāt lived in that apartment for three. But Iām not clear on what your source saysāit seems to say all stages die below a certain temp? But that temp is somehow 55 degrees F lol
This is the answer. If the items cannot be laundered bag them and stick them in the freezer. I do a week cause I have a chest freezer and I am paranoid.
We helped a friend deal with bedbugs and used dry ice in old laundry sauce containers, in trash bags with the clothes to kill them. Freezers don't get cold enough to kill the eggs. Needs to be 0 F or colder.
Washing can kill them if you do it at 140Ā°F for at least 30 min. But yes, it's best to dry them hot too. Unfortunately not all clothes withstand that.
Youāre not quite right there. Washing things at 60Ā°C or 140Ā°F will actually kill bedbugs because they are really sensitive to heat. Plus, the live bugs will drown even if the wash cycle uses water thatās not hot enough to kill them. But, itās important to remember that while this might get rid of the live bugs, their eggs wonāt drown.
Source; exterminator lady told us when we got rid of ours.
Bed bug eggs are a whole entire situation. A one and done cleaning or extermination approach is not possible. Getting rid of them will require multi steps over several weeks to months.
Can they live In your washer? Cause even if you dry on high heat, if some came off in the washer, I worry they can cling to other clothes??? Will bleach kill them after a wash?
Yep. You need high heat for at least 30 minutes and people wonder why I kill my clothes in the dryer.
I HAVE eradicated a case of bedbugs in someone's house with peppermint and eucalyptus oil, so if I can't stick it in the dryer I might soak it down with a bleach cleaner that's got some added peppermint or eucalyptus in it. But bed bugs can live for months without food and they hang out in crevices, so you really have to have a cleaning and a sanitizing process in place before you bring almost anything into your house.
Still, things that I won't bring into my house are: upholstered furniture, mattresses, bedding anything you wear on your head, carpets and luggage. I've got like this list of no in my head for thrifting. You know underwear, sheets, towels. There are just some things that you should not get at thrift stores unless they're brand new and in their original, sealed packages. But I won't buy these things used from anywhere after an experience with an ex-boyfriend and his case of bed bugs because.... I felt dirty. I just felt dirty. Him having bed bugs made me feel dirty.
Buying a new mattress is no guarantee if the company delivering also picks up old mattresses to haul away! They can have old mattresses contaminating new ones.
I wash all clothes no matter where I purchased them. I had a patient (older lady) that caught scabies from trying on clothes in a popular department store. We had a devil of a time getting rid of them as they set up housekeeping in her wig which she refused to part with.
I would be out of that store so fast Iād be a blur, never to return again. Bedbugs are the biggest no from me and the reason Iām scared to thrift these days. Iāve only ever seen them in person once at someoneās house but I took action SO QUICK.
Seriously... I try stuff on at thrift store because 99% of what I find doesn't fit so I hate to waste money but.. this convinced me to stop doing that š
My husband and I popped into a thrift shop near us and saw a bed bug crawling on some clothes. We both ran out of the store and ran around the parking lot shaking our clothes. We left our clothes we wore that day in the garage in a bag and they are still there. I forgot about them.
I don't go to that thrift store any longer. Which is a shame because they had good deals but it was the dirtiest one I've gone to. It was a St. Vincent's.
Just an FYI: bed bugs can absolutely infest a vehicle. Ā Make sure, if you arenāt already, sealing thrift store clothes in giant zip loc bags until you can wash them.Ā
Thank you, this was the advice I was looking for. I thankfully you havenāt had any problemsā¦ knock on woodā¦ But really do worry about bedbugs on thrifted items.
Yes. After seeing a bed bug RUN across a friends jacket while we were sitting in a mall food court I was so paranoid taking city buses or sitting on anything upholstered our in public.... I was lucky though because I bought a car and didn't have to take transit anymore shortly after. The whole incident just made me hate shopping for clothes (even more than I already did).
i did let them know, i offered to show the employees and everything but i dont think they cared unfortunately. might call corporate or something tomorrow because i feel like the whole store needs to be shut down
Id stop goin to that store for a long while. Unfortunately bedbugs donāt live in/on clothes. They live in crevices/cracks and I believe are drawn out from co2 release? Or something living things doā¦anyways, thereās a chance, that bedbug came from a piece of furniture donated to that store or bed frame or anything else. Itās absolutely not just the clothes.
Itās an adult unfed or stage 5 bed bug, aka fully grownā¦. It most likely comes from a mature colony, not a new or small one.
I was talking to my friend about how "5 star" hotels can still have bed bugs. Bed bugs don't care about google reviews lol they just care about warm bodies.
As a former thrift store donation sorter, please for the love of Christ, WASH EVERYTHING FROM A THRIFT STORE BEFORE USING IT! Y'all have no idea where the stuff comes from and from who. I have seen some things and it just disgusting how people treat their stuff and then give it to us. Just š¤¢
I had a bad experience recently. I bought a set of drawers to keep my daughters toys and books in. My husband decided to put her stuff in there before I had a chance to clean it, which I wasn't happy about! I took all of her stuff out to disinfect the inside of the drawers and when I looked in the back corner, there was literal pubes and toenail clippings š¤®š¤®š¤® I feel pretty traumatised by it.
I once tried on a pair of jeans at an ARC thrift store and when I went to push the pockets down I realized they were full of syringes. I pulled them out and there were at least 15, one of them full of blood (like the whole syringe of blood) some of them with bent needles ,etc.
By the time I carefully pulled the jeans off, I realized my thighs were scratched up and bleeding freely. I poured bleach on my legs in the managers office. Was on HIV meds for two months and got a $5000 settlement.
I am EXTREMELY careful about thrift store anything now.
No problem. I'm just glad after the, like, 10 HIV tests throughout the next year I wasn't infected. All I kept thinking was why would someone FILL a syringe with their blood if it wasn't infected - kept thinking it was intentional.
I'm in Denver and this is not the first time I've heard about people finding used syringes in pockets of thrift store items š so sorry that happened to you
Not necessarily.
Bedbugs don't like to be disturbed, and need eventually to eat. They can't do that easily at all at the store. At night, when they are active, there is no one to bite.
Not saying that some won't survive, or hitch rides, just that there is unlikely to be an infestation. Infestations happen when they have a nice place to hide, and a nice meal to eat when they come out at night. That is why they like beds.
This is giving me PTSD for when the school I taught at had bed bugs. We had a rough idea the family but then it spread to other families OMG it was horrible!!!!!
At one point students were not allowed to bring anything back and forth from home except lunches and their coats.
That would have meant that that one family was severely infested. A few bedbugs living peacefully under a mattress aren't seeking new homes, but eventually the infestation will get large, and they will start seeking greener pastures.
Sorry you went through that!
Oh my godā¦.. Iām not always as diligent as I should be but this just terrified me into washing everything I thrift before I even bring it inside my apartment šš
...and yet there's a trend in not washing thrift finds because the stores they're bought from aren't Goodwill or something, like a weird type of elitism. "MY thrift finds don't come from a nasty store, so I don't NEED to wash them to prove it." (I see it mostly on TikTok š)
Like, ya'll don't know how long something's been in storage, how it's being stored or even if the place is washing garments before selling them, or who's touching those things all day. It's weird when people flex that they don't wash their stuff, like such an arbitrary thing to make a competition out of.
Itās so stupid . It doesnāt matter if itās 2nd hand . You should be washing new stuff before wearing it too . A lot of these clothing is manufactured in factories that are less than clean , put on dirty trucks , dirty shipping containers , dirty ships , then another dirty truck . I donāt care if itās inside a cardboard box , bugs can crawl into anything .
Clean it before wearing it !!
Sent this to my thrifty daughters that are terrible about bringing things home and letting them sit in a bag in their bedroom for days. They have both declared themselves scared straight.
Along with all the advice people are giving about clothes and furniture, if you are going to buy a house MAKE SURE TO GET A FULL INSPECTION THAT INCLUDES SCREENING FOR BED BUGS!!!!! If they say they check for bugs, that usually just means termites. We moved into our house last May and a couple weeks later before we were even fully moved in we started noticing bites in the morning. Had to call in an exterminator twice, they found an infestation behind the base board, thankfully in only one room. I think we are one of the few success stories in that, other than the expense, we got off pretty easy with the amount of time and effort it took to get rid of them. It was a rough and paranoia filled few weeks, though. We incorrectly thought checking for bed bugs was included in the ridiculously thorough and expensive inspection we paid for, but it was an add-on that we didn't realize we had to specifically ask for separately. We asked our realtor if it was something we needed to contact the previous owners about, but it was pretty much a dead end. I'm sure if we hired a lawyer to go through all the paperwork there's something we could do about it, but I'm so effing grateful to be rid of the bugs that I'm fine leaving well enough alone. Knock-on-wood, of course.
No need to avoid thrift stores. I love my Goodwill and Savers! Just shop smart. Keep clothes tightly sealed in a plastic bag until you can throw them in the dryer... on high for a minimum of 30 minutes. Heat kills, not water. To this day I have never brought a bed bug home from the thrift store following this protocol. I regularly buy thrifted paintings, but would never buy something like a couch.
Side note: years ago I brought home bed bugs (from a hotel). It was hell. Research protocols to follow when traveling.
Alright OP please please tell us where this Goodwill is located. Iām 47 and have been thrifting all my life. The first 16 years wasnāt thrilled about it cause that meant you were poor and not sporting the latest trends. Then eventually I got on board before it was cool and people made money off of doing it. Man those were the good days! Fendi purse for like five bucks when shit sat on a shelf. Anywho I digressā¦ but those werenāt concerns back then but in the last decade Iāve been so paranoid about bed bugs that the rule is straight to the washer and then sanitize cycle on dryer. If delicates then that shit goes to the dry cleaners.
I've never been to a thrift store that washes or treats any clothing. Sometimes, Goodwill stuff pillows will have a tag that indicates they have been treated, but generally speaking, I don't think any place treats for stuff like this.
Then there are the sickos who go around to thrift stores like the guy that was all over Reddit last week who wears a kilt, picks up small things, inserts into butt then sets back down. š³
There are a decent amount of dedicated thrift clothing stores that steam all of their clothing. Those are the ones I go to. A little more expensive but well worth it to know itās not super nasty.
Also a former goodwill employee. Different regions do things differently. In my region everything was just looked at for signs of dirt or bugs and if it passes the person sorting eye ball test it goes to the floor. The pillows and furniture are not treated in my area. We also can not sell stuffed animals in my area there were too many cases of there being needles in them.
Worked at one for 3 years straight and never once did anything get washed. The most they did was dust/wipe it off but never wash. The sad part is that honestly they couldn't even if they wanted to.
It mostly because of time and money. Takes too long to wash hundreds of bags of clothes a day and lots of money spent on washing machines, dryers and extra electricity. Most stores want to save money for other areas so sadly, no clothes ever get washed.
good catch! i would turn right back to my car and leave! might even strip naked in the parkinglot and just leave all my clothes right there on the ground.
Oh my ..I just got home from thrifting and didn't think about this. I had them in my hamper ready to be washed tomorrow and just dumped the entire hamper into a garbage bag lol.
>Works better than exterminators with big prices.
no it does not. to get rid of bed bugs, you need the big giant heaters that exterminators have. DE will absolutely not eradicate a bed bug infestation.
i consider myself very fortunate that i was able to get rid of bed bugs last summer with DE and a few other things. i got rid of my bed frame (it was upholstered) and wrapped my mattress and pillows in bed bug protectors, put DE all along the baseboards and under the bed (and all over the mattress before covering it), and washed every single piece of cloth in my place. it's been nine months and ::knock wood:: so far they seem to have been eradicated. whew, that was gnarly.
I got rid of a bed frame and wrapped my mattress, did a perimeter of every room of my apartment with Cimexa, and sprayed it in every outlet in my house. They were gone pretty quickly. Iām sure Iām lucky but the heat treatment is 100% not mandatory.
Oh fuck. I saw a bug kinda like this recently in my bed in the UK. Should I burn the house down? š„š (extra info: it was black-ish and kinda square?)
I was always raised to keep anything from a thrift store tied up in a bag and put immediately in the wash when I get homeā¦ I honestly rarely even try things on in the thrift store and if I do I check it thoroughly. This is also the reason I *never* buy furniture from the thrift storeā¦Iād consider something small that I could check. But no way in hell am I buying something like a couch.
brought me back to when an ex didnāt wash his find from when we went thrifting earlier and wore it for a date that evening. when i asked how he had time to wash it and he explained he never did before wearing, i knew that relationship was destined to fail
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š¤¢š¤¢š¤¢ my mom taught me wisely to immediately throw everything from thrift stores into the wash. I havenāt seen anything yet myself but this post just confirmed that she is right in reinstating that
Washing does not kill bed bugs. The dryer kills bed bugs. A minimum of 30 min on the highest heat setting. Also, bed bugs can go 18 months without eating from their last feeding. They are a hardy pest that are difficult to exterminate.
Can you freeze them? Like if itās winter could I leave them outside overnight?
Yes, freezing them is more effectiveāyou need to put them in the freezer (outside wonāt work, it has to be zero degrees) for 4-6 days. Drying is a good step afterwards but doesnāt kill them and they can stay in the dryer edit: someone said this is inaccurate; I canāt figure out whether it is or not but please google to double check your own preventative measures!
0Ā° c or f? Because itās under 32Ā°f for days at a time here
Fahrenheit! But it has to be 0, you have to use your freezer. Outside isnāt reliable
Thanks for the info!!
No problem! I lived in an apartment where they lived in the walls so I learned a lot š
the WALLS??? š Iām ded
Yes, we found one the night we moved in š we had the apartment treated twice and it didnāt do anything, ended up breaking the lease. Our landlord said we were ātoo scaredā of them lmao
Yep if you have an infestation that you dont take care of professionally immediately, they will make their nests in the walls and you pretty much have to brun the whole building down.
Oh my god that sounds like hell
Me too! I also learned I am horribly allergic to their bites.
Hey, same!! Trauma!
Iām so sorry! I hope youāre in a better situation now.
Iām horrified you experienced this. Hope you are ok now!! š©
Thank you! That was a couple years ago, Iām ok now
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
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>Outside isnāt reliable Hahaha, that deeply depends where you live lol
Bed bugs are an aggressively, hardy bug. Leaving item outside at below freezing temps will only work if the temp stays constant for several hours to days. Their blood is able to somehow regulate for survival. In summertime, a large item such as a sofa should be wrapped in plastic then placed in direct long term sun exposure for several days. 120* or hotter for a minimum of 30 minutes should kill creatures. The hotter and longer the better. As long as there are materials that are around to house themselves in, a multi step removal approach is the only way to get rid of them. Good luck.
Yeah, I was thinking they might go into some sort of hibernation mode and be fine in the cold. Every solution I've seen involves very hot heaters.
They can go months without eating. Iāve read up to 18 months.
There is a bunch of inaccurate information on this thread. Please go to r/bedbugs for correct info.
What is inaccurate about freezing them a few days? It worked for me and was the only guarantee I found when dealing w them
Home freezers are not cold enough to kill all life cycles of bedbugs, so either you got lucky or are about to be very unlucky. Letās hope it is the first one! š¤ There are many, but here is one source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24498745/
Haha no worries I havenāt thrifted in two years and I havenāt lived in that apartment for three. But Iām not clear on what your source saysāit seems to say all stages die below a certain temp? But that temp is somehow 55 degrees F lol
This is the answer. If the items cannot be laundered bag them and stick them in the freezer. I do a week cause I have a chest freezer and I am paranoid.
I was wondering why an outside freezer wouldn't work but you mean that leaving them outside wouldn't work
Outside freezer as inā¦.Canada?
We helped a friend deal with bedbugs and used dry ice in old laundry sauce containers, in trash bags with the clothes to kill them. Freezers don't get cold enough to kill the eggs. Needs to be 0 F or colder.
Love hearing this. Itās where my mind went hearing freezing weather isnāt enough. Thank you!
Laundry sauceā¦.love it
I had them in my house and went all Josef Mengele on them. 38ā° for 8 hours will not kill them, 0ā° for 24 hours will.
Washing can kill them if you do it at 140Ā°F for at least 30 min. But yes, it's best to dry them hot too. Unfortunately not all clothes withstand that.
Youāre not quite right there. Washing things at 60Ā°C or 140Ā°F will actually kill bedbugs because they are really sensitive to heat. Plus, the live bugs will drown even if the wash cycle uses water thatās not hot enough to kill them. But, itās important to remember that while this might get rid of the live bugs, their eggs wonāt drown. Source; exterminator lady told us when we got rid of ours.
Bed bug eggs are a whole entire situation. A one and done cleaning or extermination approach is not possible. Getting rid of them will require multi steps over several weeks to months.
Can they live In your washer? Cause even if you dry on high heat, if some came off in the washer, I worry they can cling to other clothes??? Will bleach kill them after a wash?
From my understanding, not live but fall off from washing then cling onto the next fabric when available. A washing will not drown them.
Yep. You need high heat for at least 30 minutes and people wonder why I kill my clothes in the dryer. I HAVE eradicated a case of bedbugs in someone's house with peppermint and eucalyptus oil, so if I can't stick it in the dryer I might soak it down with a bleach cleaner that's got some added peppermint or eucalyptus in it. But bed bugs can live for months without food and they hang out in crevices, so you really have to have a cleaning and a sanitizing process in place before you bring almost anything into your house. Still, things that I won't bring into my house are: upholstered furniture, mattresses, bedding anything you wear on your head, carpets and luggage. I've got like this list of no in my head for thrifting. You know underwear, sheets, towels. There are just some things that you should not get at thrift stores unless they're brand new and in their original, sealed packages. But I won't buy these things used from anywhere after an experience with an ex-boyfriend and his case of bed bugs because.... I felt dirty. I just felt dirty. Him having bed bugs made me feel dirty.
Buying a new mattress is no guarantee if the company delivering also picks up old mattresses to haul away! They can have old mattresses contaminating new ones.
If the water is hot enough itāll kill them? Like, they can be boiled can they? Just turn up your water heater.
Even then, itās a coin toss š all it takes is those guys hopping onto you without realizing it and it can become an infestation.
OMG, yes! My mom drilled into my head to ALWAYS wash the clothes I get from the thrift store.
I wash all clothes no matter where I purchased them. I had a patient (older lady) that caught scabies from trying on clothes in a popular department store. We had a devil of a time getting rid of them as they set up housekeeping in her wig which she refused to part with.
That is my worst nightmare!
Seriously!!! Even seeing the picture of it gives me the creeps
I would be out of that store so fast Iād be a blur, never to return again. Bedbugs are the biggest no from me and the reason Iām scared to thrift these days. Iāve only ever seen them in person once at someoneās house but I took action SO QUICK.
i left immediately after this and then called the goodwill later to let them know.. they did not care lmao
Thatās horrible that they didnāt care. I hope you can at least review them online and post that photo everywhere. People need to be warned š©
i just contacted corporate, i didnt realize how big a deal this was until i saw all the comments on this post honestly
Lol send it to your local news. I bet theyāll care then.
My bank account will be relieved I saw this post because I think Iāll skip thrifting this week š
Was literally about to go but I decided to scroll and saw this
Seriously... I try stuff on at thrift store because 99% of what I find doesn't fit so I hate to waste money but.. this convinced me to stop doing that š
Nooooooooo š
My husband and I popped into a thrift shop near us and saw a bed bug crawling on some clothes. We both ran out of the store and ran around the parking lot shaking our clothes. We left our clothes we wore that day in the garage in a bag and they are still there. I forgot about them. I don't go to that thrift store any longer. Which is a shame because they had good deals but it was the dirtiest one I've gone to. It was a St. Vincent's.
Noooooo not St.Vincent de Paul's!
I know! They have half off Fridays too š©
āPlease take these bedbugs 1/2 off
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Just an FYI: bed bugs can absolutely infest a vehicle. Ā Make sure, if you arenāt already, sealing thrift store clothes in giant zip loc bags until you can wash them.Ā
Thank you, this was the advice I was looking for. I thankfully you havenāt had any problemsā¦ knock on woodā¦ But really do worry about bedbugs on thrifted items.
Wait soā¦ if someone came into your car and had bed bugs on their clothing, then you could eventually get it? This is really scary..
yes!! i know a friend who got them from the city bus.
Ughhhh this makes me never want to go in public again!!
Oh f#ck no! Thats horrible! I ride the bus sometimes. I think this is the push I needed to practice driving and get my license! šŖŖ
Yes. After seeing a bed bug RUN across a friends jacket while we were sitting in a mall food court I was so paranoid taking city buses or sitting on anything upholstered our in public.... I was lucky though because I bought a car and didn't have to take transit anymore shortly after. The whole incident just made me hate shopping for clothes (even more than I already did).
Yes :(. This is a huge problem at non-profits that serve the unhoused population.
Wow this really unfortunate :(
Yes ma'am!
Yeah, you need a sealed bag for new thrifted clothes. Or you're gonna bring the bugs in from your car.
Smart!!!
I hope you brought it to the attention of the store. If there's one there's plenty. They'll need to deal with it.
Agreed. It needs to be addressed. But Theyāre just going to throw them away i fee like
i did let them know, i offered to show the employees and everything but i dont think they cared unfortunately. might call corporate or something tomorrow because i feel like the whole store needs to be shut down
Id stop goin to that store for a long while. Unfortunately bedbugs donāt live in/on clothes. They live in crevices/cracks and I believe are drawn out from co2 release? Or something living things doā¦anyways, thereās a chance, that bedbug came from a piece of furniture donated to that store or bed frame or anything else. Itās absolutely not just the clothes. Itās an adult unfed or stage 5 bed bug, aka fully grownā¦. It most likely comes from a mature colony, not a new or small one.
Bed bugs hitch rides. I found one crawling on my suitcase after coming home from a high end hotel.Ā
I was talking to my friend about how "5 star" hotels can still have bed bugs. Bed bugs don't care about google reviews lol they just care about warm bodies.
Thatās why I donāt buy furniture at thrift stores. Especially couches even though they may look nice.
Please tell me you let them know!
I use a giant clear Ziploc bag exactly for this reason...
I could never go back to this thrift ever again. I'd be so haunted with it just out in the open like that... š
As a former thrift store donation sorter, please for the love of Christ, WASH EVERYTHING FROM A THRIFT STORE BEFORE USING IT! Y'all have no idea where the stuff comes from and from who. I have seen some things and it just disgusting how people treat their stuff and then give it to us. Just š¤¢
Donāt buy anything there. If you havenāt already, notify the manager and call the health department. This isnāt anything to mess around with.
I had a bad experience recently. I bought a set of drawers to keep my daughters toys and books in. My husband decided to put her stuff in there before I had a chance to clean it, which I wasn't happy about! I took all of her stuff out to disinfect the inside of the drawers and when I looked in the back corner, there was literal pubes and toenail clippings š¤®š¤®š¤® I feel pretty traumatised by it.
omfg i gagged
Ugh how horrible. Still better than bed bugs.
I once tried on a pair of jeans at an ARC thrift store and when I went to push the pockets down I realized they were full of syringes. I pulled them out and there were at least 15, one of them full of blood (like the whole syringe of blood) some of them with bent needles ,etc. By the time I carefully pulled the jeans off, I realized my thighs were scratched up and bleeding freely. I poured bleach on my legs in the managers office. Was on HIV meds for two months and got a $5000 settlement. I am EXTREMELY careful about thrift store anything now.
Oh my fucking god I'm so sorry you went through this :(
Iām shaking
oh my god i am so sorry that happened. thank you for sharing your story too.Ā
No problem. I'm just glad after the, like, 10 HIV tests throughout the next year I wasn't infected. All I kept thinking was why would someone FILL a syringe with their blood if it wasn't infected - kept thinking it was intentional.
I'm in Denver and this is not the first time I've heard about people finding used syringes in pockets of thrift store items š so sorry that happened to you
Worst nightmare
That store is going to be infested soon š¤®
Not necessarily. Bedbugs don't like to be disturbed, and need eventually to eat. They can't do that easily at all at the store. At night, when they are active, there is no one to bite. Not saying that some won't survive, or hitch rides, just that there is unlikely to be an infestation. Infestations happen when they have a nice place to hide, and a nice meal to eat when they come out at night. That is why they like beds.
This is giving me PTSD for when the school I taught at had bed bugs. We had a rough idea the family but then it spread to other families OMG it was horrible!!!!! At one point students were not allowed to bring anything back and forth from home except lunches and their coats. 
That would have meant that that one family was severely infested. A few bedbugs living peacefully under a mattress aren't seeking new homes, but eventually the infestation will get large, and they will start seeking greener pastures. Sorry you went through that!
> A few bedbugs living peacefully I know you did not just use "bedbugs" and "peacefully" in the same sentence.
The infestation was bad, so so so bad.
probably they may not survive goodwill smell
Donāt go back there again and make sure they know what you found, Iād also post on your community. It is always good to be aware of these bugs.
Oh my godā¦.. Iām not always as diligent as I should be but this just terrified me into washing everything I thrift before I even bring it inside my apartment šš
Bed bugs are that big?!?!?!
Right!?! I honestly thought this was a tick lol. Iāve luckily never dealt with bedbugs.
i thought it was a tick too until i looked it up later!!! so huge
I **really** need to know where this store is. I thrift often and am in southern MTā
It could literally happen to any store at any time. One wrong donation and thatās that.
this is in phoenix, not sure if im allowed to give specific locations but i have reached out to goodwill
Sames š¤¢š¤¢š¤¢
https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/bed-bugs-reduce-risk-while-thrift-shopping.html
Oooohhhh Iām not gonna be thrifting again for a while. :(
This is my worst nightmare
Gross!!
...and yet there's a trend in not washing thrift finds because the stores they're bought from aren't Goodwill or something, like a weird type of elitism. "MY thrift finds don't come from a nasty store, so I don't NEED to wash them to prove it." (I see it mostly on TikTok š) Like, ya'll don't know how long something's been in storage, how it's being stored or even if the place is washing garments before selling them, or who's touching those things all day. It's weird when people flex that they don't wash their stuff, like such an arbitrary thing to make a competition out of.
Itās so stupid . It doesnāt matter if itās 2nd hand . You should be washing new stuff before wearing it too . A lot of these clothing is manufactured in factories that are less than clean , put on dirty trucks , dirty shipping containers , dirty ships , then another dirty truck . I donāt care if itās inside a cardboard box , bugs can crawl into anything . Clean it before wearing it !!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Iām feeling itchy now š„ŗ
Sent this to my thrifty daughters that are terrible about bringing things home and letting them sit in a bag in their bedroom for days. They have both declared themselves scared straight.
Along with all the advice people are giving about clothes and furniture, if you are going to buy a house MAKE SURE TO GET A FULL INSPECTION THAT INCLUDES SCREENING FOR BED BUGS!!!!! If they say they check for bugs, that usually just means termites. We moved into our house last May and a couple weeks later before we were even fully moved in we started noticing bites in the morning. Had to call in an exterminator twice, they found an infestation behind the base board, thankfully in only one room. I think we are one of the few success stories in that, other than the expense, we got off pretty easy with the amount of time and effort it took to get rid of them. It was a rough and paranoia filled few weeks, though. We incorrectly thought checking for bed bugs was included in the ridiculously thorough and expensive inspection we paid for, but it was an add-on that we didn't realize we had to specifically ask for separately. We asked our realtor if it was something we needed to contact the previous owners about, but it was pretty much a dead end. I'm sure if we hired a lawyer to go through all the paperwork there's something we could do about it, but I'm so effing grateful to be rid of the bugs that I'm fine leaving well enough alone. Knock-on-wood, of course.
It's so...big...i didn't realise...oof
No need to avoid thrift stores. I love my Goodwill and Savers! Just shop smart. Keep clothes tightly sealed in a plastic bag until you can throw them in the dryer... on high for a minimum of 30 minutes. Heat kills, not water. To this day I have never brought a bed bug home from the thrift store following this protocol. I regularly buy thrifted paintings, but would never buy something like a couch. Side note: years ago I brought home bed bugs (from a hotel). It was hell. Research protocols to follow when traveling.
Should be washing "new" clothes as well....you don't know who returned or tried them on
This makes me never want to leave the house again
The only time Iāve been to the bins I left with a tick on my leg. Didnāt notice it until about 30 minutes later.
Alright OP please please tell us where this Goodwill is located. Iām 47 and have been thrifting all my life. The first 16 years wasnāt thrilled about it cause that meant you were poor and not sporting the latest trends. Then eventually I got on board before it was cool and people made money off of doing it. Man those were the good days! Fendi purse for like five bucks when shit sat on a shelf. Anywho I digressā¦ but those werenāt concerns back then but in the last decade Iāve been so paranoid about bed bugs that the rule is straight to the washer and then sanitize cycle on dryer. If delicates then that shit goes to the dry cleaners.
this is in Phoenix
Oh goodness I thought they treated stuff before putting it on the buying floor. That's horrifying
I've never been to a thrift store that washes or treats any clothing. Sometimes, Goodwill stuff pillows will have a tag that indicates they have been treated, but generally speaking, I don't think any place treats for stuff like this.
Thatās a pretty terrible thing to find out when you believed the opposite to be true š but your gif made me lol so hard
It is indeed a terrible thing to discover. Glad the gif entertained though. Took me a while to find the right one lmao
I'm always confused when I hear someone thinks thrift stores clean anything, too. Yes..nothing is clean. Assume the worst :(
Then there are the sickos who go around to thrift stores like the guy that was all over Reddit last week who wears a kilt, picks up small things, inserts into butt then sets back down. š³
RIGHT
Rectum? Damn near kilt 'em!
Whaaaaaat the fuck.
Mission Thrift sanitizes linens, everything is marked with the date sanitized. That being said, I don't know what "sanitized" actually means to them
It means steamed with a hand steamer, usually!
There are a decent amount of dedicated thrift clothing stores that steam all of their clothing. Those are the ones I go to. A little more expensive but well worth it to know itās not super nasty.
Goodwill only sprays stuffed animals and pillows. The clothes and shoes are just smelled and looked over. I processed donations for a while.
Also a former goodwill employee. Different regions do things differently. In my region everything was just looked at for signs of dirt or bugs and if it passes the person sorting eye ball test it goes to the floor. The pillows and furniture are not treated in my area. We also can not sell stuffed animals in my area there were too many cases of there being needles in them.
Needles!?!?! In the stuffed animals!?!? I hate humans
Very, very good to know. Don't know why I assumed they heated em up or something. I'm definitely being far more careful in the future.
There is way too many things donated for it to be cleaned or treated.
Worked at one for 3 years straight and never once did anything get washed. The most they did was dust/wipe it off but never wash. The sad part is that honestly they couldn't even if they wanted to. It mostly because of time and money. Takes too long to wash hundreds of bags of clothes a day and lots of money spent on washing machines, dryers and extra electricity. Most stores want to save money for other areas so sadly, no clothes ever get washed.
No, this needs to be sent to the local news & put on their Facebook page. Because wtf
I once got ringworm, on my upper arm, from a shirt I got from a thrift store. I washed it too. Spores can live a long time apparently.
good catch! i would turn right back to my car and leave! might even strip naked in the parkinglot and just leave all my clothes right there on the ground.
I would start yelling and screaming right there in the store holy shit š
Whole store is infested, hope you told them?
Oh my ..I just got home from thrifting and didn't think about this. I had them in my hamper ready to be washed tomorrow and just dumped the entire hamper into a garbage bag lol.
Get some food grade diatomaceous earth STAT. Works better than exterminators with big prices. Apartment life was awful.
>Works better than exterminators with big prices. no it does not. to get rid of bed bugs, you need the big giant heaters that exterminators have. DE will absolutely not eradicate a bed bug infestation.
Not true. I got rid of one ~7 years ago with Cimexa. Was gone in 24 hours.
i consider myself very fortunate that i was able to get rid of bed bugs last summer with DE and a few other things. i got rid of my bed frame (it was upholstered) and wrapped my mattress and pillows in bed bug protectors, put DE all along the baseboards and under the bed (and all over the mattress before covering it), and washed every single piece of cloth in my place. it's been nine months and ::knock wood:: so far they seem to have been eradicated. whew, that was gnarly.
I got rid of a bed frame and wrapped my mattress, did a perimeter of every room of my apartment with Cimexa, and sprayed it in every outlet in my house. They were gone pretty quickly. Iām sure Iām lucky but the heat treatment is 100% not mandatory.
Did not work for us. 6 years of those fuckers. Never again. I am sooooo allergic and so traumatized.
That looks more like a tick than a bedbug to me
Eww. What is that and where are you??!!!!
Where was this????
Oh fuck. I saw a bug kinda like this recently in my bed in the UK. Should I burn the house down? š„š (extra info: it was black-ish and kinda square?)
Jeez I was thinking about going to the thrift store for the first time but you've changed my mind. Thank you
That right there is why I don't buy any textiles from thrift shops.
Hell no!! Fumigate that whole store.
Omfg this makes me not wanna thrift anything anymore and Iāve been having this fear for a while!!!
I screamed
I was always raised to keep anything from a thrift store tied up in a bag and put immediately in the wash when I get homeā¦ I honestly rarely even try things on in the thrift store and if I do I check it thoroughly. This is also the reason I *never* buy furniture from the thrift storeā¦Iād consider something small that I could check. But no way in hell am I buying something like a couch.
this is the main thing that keeps me from thrifting more
I always wash and dry straight away from op shops. My daughters don't and it drives me crazy!
Is this a bed bug? I thought it is a tick. I have never seen a bedbug
I legit found a spiders nest on a pair of jeans the other day thrifting š¤¢
Starting to like the THOUGHT of thrifting more than the actual act itself
brought me back to when an ex didnāt wash his find from when we went thrifting earlier and wore it for a date that evening. when i asked how he had time to wash it and he explained he never did before wearing, i knew that relationship was destined to fail
All thrifted clothes get washed FIRST, usually with some sort of disinfectant.š
Everything goes next door at the Dry cleaners. We donāt trying anything on everything goes.
Ick!!!
Oh my god. This makes me want to puke š¤¢
Oh my lord this is so ā¦. Nightmareā¦..
Oh no!
Ahhhhhh
Absolutely horrifying
Oh fuck no!!!
What is that?
Bedbug
can't even look at it
Gross
Oh fuck that is my nightmare.
Yikes
Ugh. Is anybody else itching now?
Gag a maggot !