By Laurel J. Sweet
\nA \u00e2\u20ac\u0153devastated\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Randolph family has brought a $500,000 federal lawsuit against Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Discount
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\n Furniture, claiming a teen sleep set they purchased from the zany retailer infested their home with bloodsucking bedbugs.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0The bedbugs bite:
\n \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had to literally get rid of everything – clothes, the TV, keepsakes, my wedding gown,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a teary newlywed Yvette Downey, 39, told the Herald.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Right now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m living out of green garbage bags,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Downey said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were sleeping on the kitchen floor. No one wanted us to bring the bedbugs to their house.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Downey credited Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s with refunding her $698. The Connecticut-based chain store also had her home decontaminated after confirming the wood bed was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153infested with bedbugs,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d according to her product liability suit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But Robert \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kaufman, the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s president and celebrity pitchman, cautioned, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are customer-oriented, so don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t confuse reaction with responsibility.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My heart goes out to these people,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said yesterday. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a terrifying, ugly situation. But to say we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re responsible for it, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a stretch. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be out of business if we delivered buggy furniture.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0In 2004, when her then 13-year-old daughter Ashley Celester outgrew her twin mattress, Downey bought her a white maple sleigh bed, dresser, mirror and nightstand for Christmas.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Downey turned to Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Stoughton store, having been sold on the everyman appeal of Kaufman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s homespun commercials. The set was delivered from Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s warehouse in Taftville, Conn.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0By February 2012, Ashley was complaining she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get any rest and Downey and her then fiance, Anthony Downey, had begun scratching themselves raw.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was thinking it was our clothes or the washing powder I was using,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Downey said.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know they were bombarded by bedbugs until the early morning hours of July 25, 2012, when Downey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visiting 17-year-old cousin, Kita Johnson, sprang from Ashley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bloodied bed howling in agony.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I could actually see the bedbugs,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Downey said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She was covered with them. She was smacking them off her body. She was screaming, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGet them off me!\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The exterminator used by Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, Waltham Services Pest and Termite Control, had found \u00e2\u20ac\u0153eggs and fully grown bedbugs in each and every area\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the home, Downey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suit alleges. Downey said she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been living in her apartment for two years prior to the sleigh bed\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arrival and never had a problem with bedbugs.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Kaufman argued bedbugs are an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153environmental\u00e2\u20ac\u009d dilemma.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a company-wide problem,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Clearly, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have thousands of cases (of bedbugs) and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the case.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Downey said she won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand for being squashed like a bug. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s humiliating, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s embarrassing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We just want our home back the way it was.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Laurel J. Sweet A \u00e2\u20ac\u0153devastated\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Randolph family has brought a $500,000 federal lawsuit against Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Discount<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furniture-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}