I had some dry cleaning sent out last week. It was delivered to my place of work last Monday. It’s been sitting in a closet (with nothing else hanging in it) until today, I went and got it.
I noticed two bugs on the item. A coworker of mine said “That’s a bed bug.”
I snapped a pic of one of those bugs after putting it on a cloth.
It didn’t seem flat like a bed bug should be but what puzzled me is how could a bed bug or any bug survive a dry cleaning? Even the eggs should’ve been killed right? Which means it crawled in after?
Which is even more puzzling since there were no other clothing items in the closet, it’s empty now. So a bug would’ve had to crawled up the wall onto the rail down the hanger, made it’s way down past the plastic and then up in the clothes.
I’ve attached a pic. (Click on it for closer look.) Sorry I couldn’t get a better pic this is the best I could do. What kind of bug is this? A bed bug?
I asked the dry cleaner and he said, to bring it in and he’d clean the items for free again. So I did.
It’s entirely possible the dry cleaner is the source of the bug(s), whatever they are. Someone else could have brought in infested clothes, knowingly or not, and their infested items spread the bugs to your stuff. The normal dry cleaning process doesn’t necessarily kill them, nor does the process get the clothes hot enough to kill them.
I’d run them through the dryer on the highest heat setting (without washing), then take them to a different dry cleaner.
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Google an image search on bed bugs and they look to me a lot like your photo. So yeah, maybe follow DCnDC’s advice, run them thru the dryer on high, inspect them very very thoroughly afterwards, and use another cleaner in the future.
What were the items and can you just throw them out? I would give serious thought to nuking them from orbit before I let those clothes in my house or car. Bed bug eradication can cost thousands and take months.
Is it possible the the bugs came from your closet at work, not the dry cleaner? I agree that the dry cleaner seems the more likely source, but your building still needs to be notified so the bugs don’t spread from that closet.
You need to notify the cleaners. If I am right they won’t want those things infesting the business. It’s amazing they can live through chemo-dry cleaning processes. Those things are just bad.