Goodwill Industries has been forced to shut down two of its warehouses in Northern California over concerns that bedbugs may have infested at least part of the facilities. Goodwill may end up having to throw out numerous goods that were donated to them.
The problem was uncovered Monday, when dogs trained to sniff out bed bugs alerted workers to the infestation at a San Francisco facility. The company’s brand and marketing director has stated that this 20 foot section of the 30,000 foot warehouse will be tented over and fumigated by exterminators. This is in addition to bed bugs possibly being sighted at a Burlingame facility just days prior. Inspectors will be pouring over that warehouse today.
The good news is that retail stores have yet to report an appearance of bed bugs. Although a tractor trailer’s worth of goods has already had to be thrown out from the Burlingame warehouse, the concern is that today’s investigation may prompt additional merchandise to be thrown to the wayside.
As an additional warning to consumers, persons considering donating any clothing or other goods are advised to never donate anything that they even suspect could suffer from some kind of infestation. That way, bed bugs or any other type of pest can’t spread to other areas beyond the initial site.