No Evidence Of Sleepy’s Systematically Selling Old Mattresses As New

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said today that his investigation into Sleepy’s has not produced any evidence that the nation’s largest retailer of mattresses has been systematically selling returned mattresses as new.

Nor has Blumenthal seen any concrete evidence that Sleepy’s has delivered mattresses that were infested with bedbugs, despite receiving 28 complaints to that effect – three directly and 25 that had been sent from Connecticut consumers to Sleepy’s.

However, in an interview with me today, Blumenthal said his investigation continues and he does not preclude the possibility that isolated cases may be found where used mattresses were delivered as new, and that at least one had bedbugs.

Blumenthal agreed to the interview after rejecting my state Freedom of Information request for all documents Sleepy’s had sent him in response to questions raised in the attorney general’s investigation. Blumenthal is honoring Sleepy’s claim that its answers included propriety information that it wanted kept confidential.

However, Blumenthal agreed to my request for a verbal update on his investigation. If folks recall, my attempt to write about his initial announcement of that investigation led to The Courant firing me as its investigative consumer columnist. Sleepy’s, the largest mattress retailer in Connecticut, with more than 70 retail stores, is one of The Courant’s biggest advertisers. I have since filed an unlawful termination suit against the Courant, which will be argued Tuesday in Hartford Superior Court. The Courant’s attorneys have indicated they will argue that the suit should be dismissed.

Sleepy’s denies it has ever sold a used mattress and says its inspection and quality-control process would make it impossible for someone to receive a product infested with bedbugs. It says there has never been a proven case of bedbug infestations caused by their merchandise.

Blumenthal’s present investigation into Sleepy’s operations is the second in Connecticut since 2004, when the company paid a $4,000 fine to consumer protection.

Two years ago, Sleepy’s, according to the Better Business Bureau, paid a $200,000 fine to New York City consumer officials as part of a settlement.

The BBB said that the company faced charges that it used “deceptive sales tactics, including exchanging defective mattresses with equally defective mattresses; charging additional delivery fees to consumers for exchanging damaged mattresses; failing to deliver items when scheduled and not properly informing or offering customers store credit or refund; and refusing to honor manufacturer warranties because of alleged stains.”

Blumenthal said today that the strongest case against Sleepy’s came from Jeff Maier, who owns a small business in Norwalk and whom I wrote about last August in the column that The Courant refused to print. He had asked Blumenthal to investigate Sleepy’s last December because he and his wife experienced a ‘’severe’’ bedbug infestation that Maier said was the result of buying what appeared to be a used box spring from the Stamford Sleepy’s store.

One week after receiving the box spring, Maier said in a telephone interview with me, his wife began developing red spots, which Maier said came from bedbugs.

He said they hired the Stern Environmental Group of Secaucus, N.J., to investigate and to exterminate the bugs. The company – which specializes in ridding homes of bedbugs – dismantled the box spring and determined that it was the source of the infestation, Maier said.

Stern Environmental Group’s report, made available to me, states that the “box spring … was the culprit. There were bedbugs inside and the box spring did not look like it was new.”

Maier said it took two months before all the bedbugs could be killed. (During that time, he told me, he and his wife had to stay in their bed because if they slept somewhere else the bedbugs would have moved with them.)

He said Sleepy’s attorneys offered a replacement box spring, but they denied that the bedbugs came from their merchandise.

Maier said he was suspicious when the delivery was made because the heavy plastic used to seal the box spring appeared to have been opened. He said one of the workers assured him that it was opened by them as they took it out of their truck.

That leaves open the possibility that a mattress removed earlier from another home had bedbugs and was put in the truck next to the Maier box spring, and that their box spring then became infested.

Maier said there is no other explanation for the bedbug infestation. The couple had not slept anywhere else in the weeks prior to their purchase, Maier said, and their personal habits had not changed.

Blumenthal told me today that Sleepy’s has sold more than 100,000 mattresses in Connecticut in the past three years and continues to insist that it has never sold a used mattress as new.

Mattresses that are returned to Sleepy’s under its 21-day warranty are returned to the manufacturer, Blumenthal said he was told.

And mattresses that customers claim are defective are sold to other companies or to outlets permitted to sell used mattresses.

Blumenthal said that his office still has many questions for Sleepy’s.

“The more answers we get, the more questions they raise,” he said.