Mother Horrified After Discovering Her Baby's Sleeping Basket Is Infested With Bugs

#1 Rachael Stott found dozens of bugs in cot she'd purchased from Tesco.

A young couple, Rachael Stott, 26, and her husband Adam, 31, from Stockport, Manchester, kept cleaning their home after finding insects on their son Leo, just days after bringing him home from the hospital.

#2 Rachael and her husband Adam kept frantically cleaning their home in Stockport, Manchester, after finding insects on their son, just days after bringing him home from the hospital.

They put all of the bedding on hot washes, bought tons of bug sprays and kept checking the house for infestations, yet more and more bugs would appear. The more she cleaned, the more bugs would come. Her newborn was getting bit nightly, leaving red rashes on Leo's skin.

#3 Despite putting all of the bedding on hot washes, buying bug sprays and tirelessly checking the house for infestations, the couple were left horrified when more and more ants appeared.

After speaking with her aunt, she suggested that Rachel shake out the wicker basket to see if the bugs were in there. To her shock, they were! Adam shook the basket over a sheet of plastic and hundreds of bugs came pouring out from the bed. Rachael said, 'I felt sick to my stomach when I saw all of the living bugs falling out of the basket - the same basket that Leo had been sleeping in.

#4 The Baby basket was purchased from Tesco, and stayed in plastic wrap until Leo's birth and first night's sleep at home.

Rachael had bought the wicker basket from Tesco Direct before Leo was born but kept it in its packaging in the spare room, which had been newly decorated and refurbished ahead of the birth. She has no idea how the bed could have been infested with bugs unless it came from the store in that condition. She was very upset that her son had been placed in there, believing that it was a safe place for him.

#5 Rachel did not know what the bugs were, and had been telling people that she had an ANT infestation.

"They were horrible looking, I didn't know what they were but they were about the size of an ant." At first when the bugs were discovered at the source, Rachel was relieved, but she soon became angry. Angry that her son had been sleeping in that basket for 2 full months and been bitten continually.

#6 Complaints to Tesco prompted them to retrieve the basket and replace it with a better one.

After complaining to Tesco about the bug infestation, they told her that there was no possible way that the bugs had come from them. However, they did send someone to the home to pick up the basket. A spokesman from the company said 'We have been in touch with Mrs Stott to apologise and have arranged to collect the product from her house. We will also provide her with a replacement crib and send her little boy a toy as a gesture of goodwill.'

#7 After posting to Facebook, Rachel discovered that she was not the only one with the same problem, and they weren't ants.

Of course, the sympathy only came after Rachel started a Facebook page about the company and the bugs. She posted her story on her page and had thousands of people view it, which made Tesco a bit nervous.

#8 The baby basket of wicker was infested with BED BUGS!

Rachel says she still wants an explanation on how this was allowed to happen in the first place. Are the baskets not checked or treated before being sold? And where are they stored? Because the bugs were in fact, BEDBUGS!

#9 What are bed bugs, exactly?

Bedbugs are small, oval, brownish insects that live on the blood of animals or humans. Adult bedbugs have flat bodies about the size of an apple seed. After feeding, however, their bodies swell and are a reddish color.

Bedbugs do not fly, but they can move quickly over floors, walls, and ceilings. Female bedbugs may lay hundreds of eggs, each of which is about the size of a speck of dust, over a lifetime.

Immature bedbugs, called nymphs, shed their skins five times before reaching maturity and require a meal of blood before each shedding. Under favorable conditions the bugs can develop fully in as little as a month and produce three or more generations per year.

Although they are a nuisance, they do not transmit diseases.

#10 Where they hide, live and feed...

Bedbugs may enter your home undetected through luggage, clothing, used beds and couches, and other items. Their flattened bodies make it possible for them to fit into tiny spaces, about the width of a credit card. Bedbugs do not have nests like ants or bees, but tend to live in groups in hiding places. Their initial hiding places are typically in mattresses, box springs, bed frames, and headboards where they have easy access to people to bite in the night.

Bedbugs are active mainly at night and usually bite people while they are sleeping. They feed by piercing the skin and withdrawing blood through an elongated beak. The bugs feed from three to 10 minutes to become engorged and then crawl away unnoticed.

It takes several professional fumigation's and treatments to get rid of the bugs and sometimes furniture and bedding must be destroyed.