Bed bugs have been found in multiple areas of the Brooklyn Children’s Museum – both public areas and offices — since August 16th, according to an email from museum executives to employees which was leaked to the Daily News by an unnamed employee.
The New York Daily News reports:
An exterminator went to the popular Crown Heights kid’s haven Aug. 16 after a bedbug was found in a mezzanine office and treated ‘infected’ locations, museum executive Donald Cramer told employees in an email obtained by the Daily News.
The Brooklyn Ave. museum opened the next day — and has continued to keep regular hours though some employees fear the cleanup hasn’t been thorough enough.
According to the article, the first bed bug was found in a mezzanine office and then a pest control team was brought in on August 16th with a canine inspection. Three infested sites were found at the time, the Daily News notes, including a reading chair in the “Totally Tots” area for children under-4.
A subsequent inspection on August 20th found bed bugs in two additional locations. The Daily News says the problem persisted in some offices and in the Collections section of the museum as of last week.
A former employee who worked as an exhibits coordinator, Colleen Lynch, told the Daily News she encountered bed bugs in a cabinet at work on August 20th, and then one crawled out of her clothing when she got home the same day. She had to treat her apartment and she was so upset that she quit her job.
There are always multiple sides to a bed bug story (see this story about bed bugs at Urban Outfitters, for a recent example). However, it does sound like the bed bugs at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum are are kind of widespread; bed bugs in five different areas seems like a significant problem. If this story is accurate, employees are right to be concerned for themselves and for guests.
That canine scent detection teams found two additional infested locations on their second visit, four days after the first, suggests either they missed some spots, or bed bugs were continuing to spread (or continuing to be brought in).
Either way, it’s quite worrying.
