Dateline’s investigative piece today revisited the reconditioned mattress problems in New York City.
In 1996, 19 states had laws in place regulating the sale of reconditioned mattresses. This year that number is up to 26. We started our investigation in New York, where state law requires them to be labeled clearly with yellow tags marked “used materials.” Not disclosing that information is also against federal law.
Reconditioned mattresses begin their journey once they’re thrown out to sidewalks or garbage heaps. At dawn, in many American cities, men with vans come out and cart them off to factories, where we were told they sell for five dollars a piece.
Dateline trailed one of the ‘men with vans’ to a mattress factory in Williamsburg.
And the rest is predictably gross and sad.
The story features well-known entomologist/PMP Rick Cooper, entomologist Jeff White and bed bug dog trainer Pepe Peruyero and his dog Gidget.
There are already two reviews for the Brooklyn reconditioned mattress factory in google from Dateline viewers.
Let’s think about this.
In September 2006, the New York City Council held a hearing on proposed bed bug legislation that would ban the sale of reconditioned mattresses.
At this hearing, Andrew Eiler of the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs explained that manufacturers and sellers of used bedding had to be registered with the Department of State and had to affirm that they sanitized bedding according to standards and regulations; that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs did not know how many licensed second-hand dealers sold reconditioned mattresses in the city; and that, because the state had never promulgated mattress sanitization standards, second-hand dealers are “supposed to conform to standards that don’t exist.”
Eiler said that the $50 cost-difference between a new and used mattress would be “an unbridgeable gap” for the poor and suggested instead that the Council ask the Department of State to adopt sanitizing rules as provided by law.
In a story about the 2006 hearing, The New York Times asked the Department of State about the missing standards and got this response:
In a telephone interview after the hearing, Eamon Moynihan, a spokesman for the Department of State, confirmed that “there were no standards promulgated.” The reasons why were not entirely clear, he said, but it seems that when employees looked at the 1996 law, they concluded that to enforce the law would have made reconditioned mattresses so expensive as to effectively outlaw them.
Mr. Moynihan said the department had no plan to revisit the issue.
Dateline asked the State Department for an interview and received a statement: the Department now “plans a full investigation.”
As for the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs, their position on reconditioned mattresses remains what it was in 2006. From the Dateline story, Commissioner Jonathan Mintz:
“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.”
How careful, Commissioner? I think hazmat suits are indicated, don’t you?
These pages may be of related interest:
- What would New York’s missing mattress sanitizing regs look like anyway?
- Dr. Philip Tierno: “I would never buy a refurbished mattress, a reconditioned mattress, under any circumstances”
- Dr. Pollack and the 2006 NYC bed bug hearing
- We are reviewing the new NYS Department of State proposed mattress sanitizing regs
- Ending the 30-day trial risk plus remembering the essential mattress problem
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