How To Clean A Mattress?

Ok ... so you bought an expensive mattress and your child or pet used it as a bathroom. Or maybe your husband spilled some gravy on it (bet he heard about that one). You can buy a new one or, perhaps, clean it to your satisfaction.

First, let's try doing it ourselves! Get some dishwashing soap. You know ... the kind you use to hand wash dishes. Mix a couple of teaspoons into 16 ounces or so of luke warm water. Apply the mixture sparingly on the stain. I find that I prefer to use an old spray bottle to do this. An old glass cleaner bottle will do nicely! Don't soak the mattress, just get the stain good and damp. Scrub the stain well with a sponge or a bristle brush but be careful to not harm the fabric. Then absorb as much of the moisture with paper towels as possible. If you're not happy with the results, try repeating the process a time or two.

If that didn't work, you can try removing the stain with a steam-cleaning machine. You can rent a steam cleaner at grocery stores, home centers, moving truck rental locations, some drug stores, and other general rental centers. Just make sure that the cleaner has a hand attachment. This might also be a good time to remove those nasty carpet stains and stains on your furniture! Don't be afraid to use a generic steam cleaning shampoo with your rental! Many manufacturers talk like only their cleaner is safe to use in their machine. Of course, their brand costs five times what the generic does! Just make sure that you get a "non-foaming" detergent made for steam cleaners.

And then there's the final alternative ... the professional mattress cleaning service! Let me tell you ... professional equals big bucks (usually). If you have a $3,000 mattress, this is probably a good value way to go. If the mattress cost $500 or less, you may end out spending a reasonable percentage of that to get the old one cleaned! Beware of offers like, "We professionally clean your mattress for $19.95". That's almost certainly a "come on" offer to get in your door. Then they'll tell you that your particular mattress needs all of these "extras" and the price will be $249.99. Oh yeah ... they can't guarantee results at that price either.

So we've got the mattress cleaned. How about we keep it that way. If you expect that the bed wetter or late night eater is probably going to goof up again eventually, why not invest in a mattress pad. Then the stains happen to an item that can be popped into the washing machine! You gotta love that! I mean, who needs all this frustration anyway?

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