Bedbugs Shut Down Hollister Store in SoHo

At right, a photo of what one Hollister employee says is a "bedbug exoskeleton on a hoodie."

Hollister, the teen-oriented clothing store that's a subsidiary of Abercrombie & Fitch, was shut down yesterday due to what one employee described as "a massive bedbug outbreak" at the four-story SoHo flagship location. And according to our source, who spoke on condition of anonymity so that he/she wouldn't lose his/her job at the creepy "bedbug breeding ground," the senior management blew off complaints about bedbugs for almost a month. In a long, outraged email, the employee described the nightmarish situation:

The four story flagship store is known for hiring models and having them stand around the store scantily clad to help market the brand. The first report of bedbug bites in the store was three weeks ago by and employee and a manager, but that was ignored. On Tuesday the 29th, an employee found that she had been bitten, and also found a live bedbug and an exoskeleton on her borrowed Hollister outfit. All of the employees were forced to continue working even though more and more bugs were being discovered.
Multiple employees were covered in bites. Hollister was more concerned about losing money than the health and safety of their hundreds of employees and thousands of customers. If they were concerned in the least, the store would have been shut down the moment the first bugs were discovered. Just today they closed the store down, but who knows how many employees and customers were exposed to the outbreak in the past three weeks, only jeopardizing the rest if the stores in the area as bedbugs spread like wildfire.

Bedbugs only feed at night, and if you've ever been inside Hollister, you know that it is almost completely dark. I'm sure you can imagine the store has become a bedbug breeding ground since it was first exposed. Go Hollister!

Aaaaaand Go Lawsuit! Since bedbugs are capable of traveling in the folds of clothing, you can imagine the class action lawsuit potential here. "Technically it's a breach of warranty of merchantability," Michael M. Martin, a professor at Fordham University School of Law, tells the Wall Street Journal (paywall). "They are defective because they don't meet consumer expectation. The usual remedy for that, first of all you can get price back and, second, you might well be able to recover for the consequential injuries. I'd be willing to take that case."

Our source says "only the full time employees are being paid while the store is closed, even though many part time employees work 40+ hours a week and depend on that store to pay bills... Now they have three shirtless models standing outside to tell customers that the store is closed until further notice." A spokesman for Hollister confirmed the infestation and said the bedbugs were "affecting certain isolated areas of the store." He also said he expected the store to open within the next day or two, but we all know how resilient bedbugs are—the bastards can live over a year between feedings!

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on July 1, 2010 9:16 AM

Comments [rss]

Winnie

Today is the worst day in hollister. After buying t-shirts i went outside the day light to check t-shirt. I saw bugs inside the bag! it was nasty

Lisanne!

It's a month later. I woulds think that if there were still bedbugs someone else would have said something.

Then again a lot of people are staying away from there now, and many who comment wouldn't have gone there anyway.

James B.

I know NYC has a massive bed bug problem, but for this to be a bed bug infestation that would mean that most of the clothes in the store would have to have bed bugs living in them. If it were really that bad, the bed bugs would be visible crawling about on the customer clothes, the racks, and even on the walls.

My point is that customers would notice this.

I bet this is probably scabies. Something similar happened at Walt Disney World years ago, where the people dressed up at Mickey, Minnie, and Donald complained that Disney wasn't properly washing the undergarments for the character costumes. All the costumed people ended up with scabies, which can reek havoc at the skin. Maybe a Hollister employee had scabies and spread it to everyone by sharing clothes???

Nyctini11

Def resembles a scabie mite but those typically can't be seen by the naked eye, almost certainly wouldn't be as big as this pic.

On your comment about the BB's, you'd be surprised, with the lack of public education on BB's, i wouldn't be surprised at all if customers didn't notice them. BB's are the ultimate masters of hiding, many people live with them, unknowingly, so a customer coming in/out of a store is most likely not paying attention to the walls, racks, etc. Hopefully many, as we've always been told to do, wash their new clothes prior to wearing them, or at least run them thru a dryer.

mrguy

This is why we need to bring back DDT. it's the only effective pesticide for bedbugs, and it's why for 50 years we all lived free of this nightmare. the reason DDT was banned was because of the extraordinarily harmful effects it had when used in industrial-agricultural applications. When used in urban and domestic situations, its environmental impact is negligible.

Don't believe me? check out the NY Times article that says the same thing (or rather, that says the things i'm now repeating)

argh

It doesn't work anymore, because widespread overuse led to widespread resistance.

http://newyorkvsbedbugs.org/2008/05/15/ddt-resistance-once-more-with-tables-and-sources/

Cannibal

DDT is the best!

Jeff

Every New Yorker should familiarize themselves with pictures of bed bugs. It just shows that no building is immune from the bed bug epidemic overtaking New York.

ProfessorVonNostren

Gross, yet still hilarious.

Cannibal

Are you sure those aren't crabs? The managers have sex with staff at the one in Roosevelt Field on the piles of jeans.

airtech1

Hollister is a sub of A&F, right? Serves them right for all their cretin marketing over the years, racism, vulgarity, class-less. I wonder if they'll make the bed bugs strip out of their shells into bikini's, too...

virgilstarkwell

Not bedbugs, crabs.

CR

Funny, I thought it would have been crabs...

alphabeta

I'm surprised there haven't been cases of movie theater infestations, seems like an obvious place for bedbugs--dark, lots of folks sitting calmly for two hours at a stretch.