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Gross alert: the massive Hollister store in SoHo, Manhattan, has been closed because it's infested with bedbugs. An employee at the Hollister location told Gothamist:
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.What's really scary: the store, which was always crowded with shoppers—both local and tourist—could have been the breeding ground of hundreds, if not thousands, of bedbug infestations. If you recently shopped at the Hollister store in SoHo, check yourself and your purchases. That is all.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!
· Breaking: Bad case of bedbugs close Hollister SoHo [RNY]
· Bedbugs shut down Hollister store in SoHo [Gothamist]
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