SACRAMENTO–

San Francisco’s Goodwill has a big bed bug problem; they have had to throw away at least a tractor trailer worth of donations. They’ve also spent thousands to eradicate the blood sucking pests.

“It’s unfortunate that San Francisco is having this terrible tragedy,” said Mark Klinger, Goodwill’s director of retail operations for the Sacramento area.

Kingler says the pest probably came in on a donated piece of clothing.

“Theirs probably started at a donations site and got into the warehouse,” said Kingler.

It’s a scary problem that you could have purchased and brought home with you. The blood suckers spread fast, but Kingler says San Francisco’s Goodwill infestation couldn’t crawl its way here because its a separate organization.

“Each Goodwill is independent from one another. The territories are based on counties,” said Kingler.

Sacramento does twice the amount of donations that San Francisco does despite the city’s size. San Francisco has 16 donations sites; Sacramento has 73 in our region.

“We sort every item in here first. We go inside and outside of the garment and it’s all done on a table, so if something is crawling out of there we are going to see it,” said Kingler.

After the clothes are inspected they are sorted. They then make their way to the stores where they are inspected again put and on hangers.

Goodwill does ask that people wash all their donations before bringing them to the drop-off sites. Dirty clothes donated can’t be sold in the stores.