u/Ok-Lab-3025

I picked this basket up at a thrift store many years ago and it's one of the best purchases I ever made. My cat loves to be carried around in it and lets me know whenever she wants a ride. She loves it so much and I love it too 💙

It's broken a couple times and I've always been able to fix it (you can see the bolted on belt from when the strap broke LOL) but this last time it broke through the bottom and even though I have glued and taped the heck out of it with gorilla tape, I'm not sure it's going to last very long.

I've been looking for another one of these baskets for years and I've never found anything close enough to it. But now I'm more desperate than ever to find a replacement.

I believe it was likely a gift basket (maybe for like some spa items or something) at the beginning of its life. It's structured inside- there's a stiff cardboard material core that is then covered in a faux leather on the outside and a thin felted fabric on the inside. It used to have a built-in strap made of the same blue faux leather that came over and attached with a silver buckle on the other side.

It is approximately 17 in Long and 9 and 1/4 in wide. The shortest height on the ends are about 6 and 1/2 in and the tallest height in the middle is about 9 and 1/2 in.

It's really important that the replacement be really close to these dimensions because it's the perfect size for her to completely lay down and curl up or to lay down with her head facing up and still be able to see out. If it's any taller on the ends she won't be able to see out and I know she won't like that as much (she likes to look out while she goes for a ride lol). She's also a bit of a larger cat so it really can't afford to be much smaller 😅 and it definitely has to be structured. Some similar baskets I've found are floppy on the sides and that just will not work for her. She likes the structure because it feels like a box and it holds its shape.

Some search words I've tried:

Gift basket

Gift hamper

Magazine holder

Leather tote

Storage basket with handle

I've tried all the different image searches and no luck there either. There's some similar leather magazine holder totes out there but they are always floppy-sided and not structured and they're usually too big or too small anyway. Closest thing I've ever found is a green one that's pickup only on eBay very far away from me. If I have no luck here I might ask them if they would be willing to ship.

It has to be around the same size and be structured/stiff. And needs a carrying strap of course.

Would greatly appreciate any help or advice or fresh thoughts. Or if you somehow magically recognized what this basket was originally used for (like IDK if it was a bath& body works gift basket or something that could maybe help me)

Thank you so much for any help from me and Baby 🐾

Hi all. Went to a garage sale and bought some stuffed animals and other toys.. At one point in the car I felt a tiny sting and saw a microscopic little pinprick sized clear ish tan bug on my arm that I slapped off. Didn't think much of it. When I got home and I was unloading stuff and looking it over, I found this bug. I went to get him with a piece of tape so I could study him and try and figure out what he is but I accidentally squished him and he just splattered blood. Now I'm really scared that it's a bed bug. I have trash bagged every thing I got from that sale that was soft like the stuffed animals and put that in the dumpster. Anything I got that was hard that I still wanted has gone in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I vacuumed out the entire car and it's currently trying to hot box with the windows up sitting in the sun all day.

Two people had went in the house before we figured out the situation but they were a very brief trips. After we found the bug we did all the cleaning mentioned above and then we took our clothes off before we went in the house and immediately took showers. Said clothes we took to the laundromat the next day to wash and dry before washing and drying them again at home. One family member sat on our couch after the laundromat visit but before taking a shower which stressed me a little bit but not much because they felt very comfortable that they had been very careful at the laundromat. But then later I sat on the couch and about 30 minutes after that found a really itchy raised bump on my arm. So now I'm terrified that the couch could be contaminated.

We've never seen a bed bug in our lives we have absolutely no idea what we're dealing with. I search it with Google images and depending on which picture I search it will tell me that it's a bed bug, or a tick, or a red mite, or some kind of mite.. And I just can't get a clear answer I've looked at pictures online and they they look similar but not the same and I just don't know. My whole family is freaking out and we're absolutely miserable and have been doing so much work trying to prevent this.

It was also really tiny. When I'm sitting online it's talking about the size of an apple seed but like this is way tinier than that. But it could be a young one of course. I included pictures of the little finger puppet that it was on for scale reference and you can see the little red spot it left behind when it got squished.

And I've always been aware of the risk of bed bugs we've always been very careful. If we buy anything soft it either gets immediately washed or immediately put in the freezer when we get home. We've always been so careful but shit can still happen and now we're very stressed. Well you really don't want to throw out the whole couch but we would rather do that than actually get infested. We also have cats, one of which has asthma and the other one is going through heart failure and we're terrified to get an infestation because we don't know how we would end up treating it without risking the cats.

If anyone's familiar with bed bugs please give your two cents on whether this bug looks like a bed bug to you or not.

Sorry if this is very ramblely I'm very stressed 😅

Oh, in addition, a friend of mine also went to the same sale and bought a few stuffed animals and other toys. When I told him about our experience he immediately bagged up the stuff he bought there and took it to the curb to wait for trash. This morning he decided to peek in the bag and he said there was a bunch of really tiny pinprick sized red dots moving around in there. Which sounds like the first bug I found on my arm in the car that I did not get a picture of. He also did not get a picture and we're too scared to open the bags again. Now of course it's possible that the bugs he saw crawled in the bags overnight from outside. They might not be related but they also very well may be.