Pennsauken, NJ - WHEN DIEP HUYNH and Oanh Nguyen bought their first bedroom set in June 2006 after 10 years of marriage, they figured they had claimed their small chunk of the American dream. The itching started the first night. And after a few weeks, the Pennsauken couple was covered in dozens of bloody scabs.

Baffled doctors scratched their heads. They prescribed an assortment of ointments, but the source of the irritation remained undercover Literally, undercover. One night in September 2006, the couple awoke to a nightmare. "I couldn't sleep because it was very itchy," said Huynh, 52. "I turned on the light and there were bugs crawling. There were many." The couple's new bedroom set, which cost $1,600 at JC Penney in nearby Cherry Hill, was infested with bedbugs.

Yesterday, the couple's screams of horror at the creepy discovery turned to cries of joy when a Camden County jury awarded them $49,000 in damages against JC Penney. "Finally, we are happy," Nguyen said, surrounded by her husband and five children in the family's bungalow.

Huynh, a former employee of Dietz & Watson in Philadelphia, and Nguyen said that JC Penney didn't believe them when they called the store to report the infestation. When a repairman finally came a month later, he found bedbugs all over the room: in the joints between the furniture, in the screw holes, and the mattress. He also noted in his report that "blood oozed out" when the bugs were "squished."

The retailer promised to send a truck out to help the couple move the furniture, but instead offered them $100 "so we could pay our friends to move it," Huynh said. They never sent the truck or the money, Huynh added. When Huynh, who is disabled with severe asthma, finally hauled the bedroom set out to the garbage, he taped a note to it, warning others that it was infested. The family also trashed their bedding, clothes, Oriental rugs, and their kids' mattresses. An exterminator treated the house for $750, but Huynh and Nguyen continued to sleep on a rollout mattress in their bedroom to avoid carrying any stragglers in the rest of the house. Their kids appreciated the sacrifice.

"I get chills when I think about it," said 14-year-old Cindy Huynh. JC Penney credited the family for the furniture after Huynh hired Marlton attorney Kevin Siegel in November 2006, but by then it wasn't just about bills. They had ventured into the world of pain and suffering. Nguyen was so embarrassed by her appearance, she wore long-sleeve shirts everywhere, even to her job at a local factory. She cried on the stand this week, too. "I didn't want people to see me and ask what happened," she said. "I had bites on my neck though."

Huynh, who lived in a refugee camp in Malaysia after escaping South Vietnam in 1975, could handle the bugs but was concerned about his kids. "They were just so scared," he said. "They would never come near our room."

Siegel filed a lawsuit in November 2006, and the couple was initially awarded $35,000 in arbitration. But JC Penney appealed that decision and offered $7,500 instead, Siegel said. "Basically from day one, they were giving these people the middle finger," he said yesterday. "This was a real David versus Goliath case." Attorney Jill Taylor, who represented JC Penney, did not return a phone call for comment. Siegel said he did not know whether JC Penney planned to appeal the decision.

The two, who married in 1996, still haven't replaced the bedroom set because Nguyen said she can't look at a dresser or headboard without seeing bedbugs all over them. Despite their bloody ordeal though, they still shop at JC Penney. "We just don't buy furniture there anymore," said Peter Huynh, 8.


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