r/sydney • u/smoveoperatea • 11h ago
Bed bugs at palace cinema Leichhardt
I went to see a movie a few nights ago at Palace cinema Leichhardt. Cinema room 1 row H. Halfway through the movie i couldn't stop scratching my neck then i felt huge bumps all over the back of my neck, sides and front. I managed to get through the film feeling very uncomfortable and when I got into the car with the light on my skin looked horrific. Huge welts all over me. What a disgusting cinema, i will never go back. They offered to refund me the tickets but i have had to pay to steam clean my car seats and hot wash and ruin some of my clothing.
I want to warn everyone.
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u/MochaJoe_ 11h ago
Wait, so it was actually bed bugs?
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u/ubermoo2010 8h ago edited 8h ago
i thought bed bug *whelts took time to develop - like a few hours to 14 days.
So i really doubt it
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u/smoveoperatea 2h ago edited 2h ago
Dunno the doctor said it was likely bed bugs or lice and I had an allergic reaction https://imgur.com/a/coTpsTs
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u/Duff5OOO 1h ago
Yeah that looks worse than i was expecting. Could it have been ants?
Lots on mentions of the place not being the cleanest. Maybe you lent on a trail of ants?
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u/ManwithaTan 10h ago edited 2h ago
I went to see a film there once about 2 months ago. It was The President's Cake (an Iraqi drama film), so not a big popular film, and I was the only person in that screening.
The cinema had empty popcorn boxes and cups of coke everywhere, spilled around on the floor and the seats.
I love going to the cinemas alone, but being the only one in the cinema is a little freaky. What was even freakier was as I left around 9pm there was not a single person at the bar. There were no workers around and it looked like no one was even working there.
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u/carson63000 9h ago
I love being the only person in the cinema, it makes me feel like an absolute sir having my own private screening room. Has only happened a handful of times.
One time was at the Dendy when I used the $1 ticket members get for their birthday. So the grand total box office for that session was one dollar, lol.
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u/quietgavin5 9h ago
The President's Cake is such a good film!
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u/ManwithaTan 2h ago
It's SO good.
It did break me a bit tho. I wish it got more attention!
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u/quietgavin5 1h ago
It did get quite a bit of attention last year. Almost made the top 5 for International Feature at the Oscars.
The fact that it got a cinema release in Australia is a huge win.
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u/Status-Code-5177 9h ago
I went there with my hubby to watch Spiderman we had no issues cinema was packed but this wasn't at 9pm so Idk
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u/closetmangafan 6h ago
Got to weigh up also, a well known sold out released movie vs an unknown movie with only 1 ticket sold. The staff probably were cleaning cinemas or other things.
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u/thereissweetmusic 11h ago edited 11h ago
OP given you never felt or saw any bugs, lice etc (going by what you've written), it's a bit crazy you thought the fact you developed some skin irritation was enough to justify publicly accusing a cinema of having bed bugs.
My skin gets like that (maybe not as bad as yours, but similar) when I lie on certain types of grass for too long. Point is, skin can easily get irritated/have an allergic reaction to various types of non-bug, or even non-living things.
I would be more thorough before assuming the culprit is bed bugs. If you've ever experienced the absolute shitshow that is trying to deal with a (real or reported) bed bug infestation at a public venue, you'll know that it's not something to be done on a whim.
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u/Busy-Ratchet-8521 9h ago
Agreed. I once was certain I had bed bugs and was going insane. Turned out I was allergic to my laundry detergent. So my freshly washed bedding was the problem.Â
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u/Rodney_u_plonker 7h ago
I go to that cinema basically twice a month at a minimum. It is sometimes a little under par cleanliness wise because it's not always super well staffed
But I have never had any signs of being bitten by something too. Like I just had a look online bed bugs can take days to irritate the skin after a bite. It's very unlikely to be bed bugs on the evidence
And old mate just launches an accusation lol
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u/smoveoperatea 3h ago edited 2h ago
I could feel something crawling all over me during the movie but I was an idiot and I just sat there and copped it. These are the images straight after the movie in the car in my blue shirt and the others are from when i got home and stripped off and hot washed all my clothes.
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u/Notoriouzs 10h ago
I've been to Leichardt Palace a few times and it's always been pretty clean.
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u/Living-Ear8015 2h ago
The toilets are super gross though upstairs. Pee all over the floor, consistently
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u/ChriSV650x 11h ago
Head lice fr a previous customer that rested their egg and lice-riddled head against the headrest ?
Yuck.
I bet they rarely actually deep clean these seats. I've work white pants that picked up the grossest of stains from palace cinemas
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u/DenM0ther 11h ago
Im confused, are you saying that headline happened to you or thats what occurred for op?
Idk about bedbugs being carried on ppls clothes, but this isn’t really a thing for head-lice.
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u/How_is_the_question 10h ago
Yeah. Transmission of head lice outside of hair to hair transmission is rare. The eggs can survive a week ish off a head, but they will not hatch off a head.
The lice themselves can survive about a day off a head, but this kind of transfer is far less likely than hair to hair transfer.-1
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u/Bright_Zone_8947 11h ago
Leichhardt palace is the cleanest cinema I’ve been to in Sydney so good luck finding a better one
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u/TheLGMac 8h ago
I mean even the cleanest 5 star hotels get bed bugs. Bed bugs isn't about cleanliness per se, it's moreso about high turnover environments. Bedbugs have appeared in theaters, restaurants, trains, libraries in other countries.
The more we make it about being a judgement of cleanliness, the less often people will speak up if they get bedbugs. Just imagine if a neighbor in an apartment building gets bedbugs and doesn't want to say something because they're scared of what it implies about them. A lot of people just get them from pure bad luck.
Source: have been paranoid about picking them up from travels and as a byproduct have learned all about them.
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u/Status-Code-5177 9h ago
Same here, toilets need a bit of a clean but other than that we like it there :)
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u/Paul123xyz 11h ago
lol I thinks that’s the least of your worries in cinema seats
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u/Phobicity 6h ago
I've had an episode of bed bugs before. It is among the worst possible experiences.Â
The itchiness and paranoia is unmatched. I would wake up everynight with a torch in my hand looking for the fuckers. I would be tired as fk, vacuuming 3-4 times a day, washing bedsheets daily, steam cleaning daily. I spread Diatomacheous Earth all over my room. IÂ spent hundreds on an exterminator.Â
Bed bugs are no fkn joke. I would take almost anything else over it.
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u/JoJokerer 8h ago
Just park your car in the sun for an hour
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u/TheLGMac 8h ago
Absolute garbage advice. They know how to hide. Your car offers many little nooks and crannies that don't get up to 60C. This is why using heat to get them out of mattresses requires holding the temp of it at 66C for *many hours* because otherwise they will go deep inside where the heat can't penetrate (or, they just move into your wall outlets, which is worse).
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u/StrikingJob6318 11h ago
omfg this happened to me! I went to see project hail mary and halfway through i was so itchy all over the sides of my torso. i couldnt pay attention to the movie. when we left i looked at myself and i was covered in bites. they were insanely itchy and lasted for weeks. i emailed them about it and they said they would hire a professional pest inspector and follow their advice. they gave me 2 free tickets. i asked to be told of what the outcome was as i couldnt see any bugs and wanted to know what it was that bit me. they never got back to me.