Do you own a memory foam mattress? Do you often find yourself washing your sheets, and then feeling at a loss because you’re not sure how to clean your memory foam mattress?
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If you answered yes to these questions, then you’re in the right place. Knowing how to clean your mattress is absolutely essential when you’re trying to maintain the cleanliness of your home. Below, you can find why you need to clean your mattress in the first place, and how you can do so effectively.
Why Should You Clean Your Mattress?
So many people buy their mattress and leave it alone for years. They don’t wash it, and other than throwing a bedspread over it to prevent staining, they don’t do much else to maintain it. Over time, however, the mattress is likely to collect dust mites and bacteria. Because of this, you might want to clean your mattress regularly. If you’re in the process of cleaning your sheets and bedspread then you have the perfect opportunity to do so.
What You’ll Need
How you clean your mattress depends entirely on why you’re cleaning it. If your child or pet peed on it, then you’ll have less to do than you would if someone gets their “gift from mother nature” and bleeding on the middle of the mattress.
Regardless, here are some things that says you should be keeping around your house in case of emergencies:
1. bleach
2. one roll of paper towels
3. baking soda
4. white vinegar
5. a bowl
6. a vacuum
For normal spills, messes, and cleaning, you’ll need to use the bottom five items on the above list; however, if you anticipate that the mess is going to stain your mattress, then you’ll want some bleach to completely eliminate the possible stain.
Cleaning the Mattress
If you want to clean your mattress because it’s been a while and you’re worried that bacteria is collecting, then simply vacuuming it will solve the problem. If, however, you want to remove any stains, you can follow the following steps.
(You’ll need to collect a large bowl, some white vinegar, baking soda, paper towels, and a vacuum, and a strip of material.)
1. Get out your large bowl. You’ll want to fill about half of the bowl with white vinegar. This will smell pretty strongly, so make sure you have a cloth or another strip of material like it to cover your nose. Once you’ve done so, you can fill the other half of the bowl with lukewarm water. Now, you can walk back to your mattress with the bowl in your hands, but be sure not to spill it because you really don’t want to have to pick up that mess.
2. Remove the sheets and toppers that are covering your mattress. This is important if you’re picking up a spill or a urine mess. Throw these materials in the washing machine so that they can clean while you’re restoring your foam mattress. Use paper towels to absorb the mess that remains on your mattress.
3. Now you’re going to dip some paper towels in the solution of vinegar that you’ve made. When you do this, you need to make sure that you don’t rough up your foam too much. That means you shouldn’t scrub too hard, you shouldn’t twist it, and you shouldn’t squeeze it, because this will ultimately cause the deterioration of your beloved foam mattress.
4. Get out the baking soda. You should be prepared because you’ll need an entire box of baking soda to complete this step. So, get out your box and pour it on the entire stain. While this might seem excessive, it’s worth it in the end because you’ll have a stainless mattress.
- You should even spread it around the stain because it’s likely that the liquid, or whatever made your mattress dirty, has seeped further into your mattress without you being able to see it. Leave the baking soda there for a while – a couple hours at least – so that it can absorb the stain properly.
5. Get out the vacuum. Since you most likely want to avoid sleeping out a thousand particles of baking soda, it’s time to get out the vacuum so that you can remove them from your mattress and sleep in peace. If, however, the stain isn’t gone when you’re done vacuuming, then you have one more step to follow.
6. Get a new bowl. This is because you’re going to to mix some bleach and water together. Normally, you shouldn’t use more than a tablespoon of bleach for every cup of water. If you pour pure bleach on your mattress, you’ll absolutely ruin your mattress. Pour the bleach on the mattress and place a few paper towels on top to absorb the remainder of the spill.
Conclusion
If you’re in a situation where you need to clean your memory foam mattress but don’t know how, then there’s no need to look any further. Here is a brief summary of the above steps:
- Create the mixture
- Remove your sheets
- Dip your paper towels in the vinegar and apply them to the stain
- Remove the paper towels and pour a box of baking soda on the stain
- Vacuum the dried baking soda
- Apply a bleach mixture if the stain is stubborn
Now that you know how to remove the stain, go ahead and try for yourself. Please leave any comments or suggestions below.