Top Mistakes to Avoid While Cleaning Your Mattress

Many people are not aware how to maintain their mattress and may often end up damaging it if they are using the wrong cleaning methods. Below are common mistakes to avoid when cleaning the mattress:

What do you need to avoid while cleaning your mattress?

Avoid wetting your mattress

When spillage occurs on your mattress, the common tendency is to wash the mattress upholstery using water and soap to remove stains. Warning against cleaning mattress using moisture has been published by many mattress manufacturers as wetting it can potentially damage the mattress upholstery.

Cleaning by using a beater

Since many generations ago, people are aware that the mattress contains a lot of dust and bugs, so it was common for our parents and grandparents to practice cleaning it by beating and sunning the mattress in their earlier years. Perhaps this practice can still be observed in some countries or homes whose mattresses are light and there is sufficient space for the mattress to be sunned.

Contrary to traditional mattress cleaning belief, beating the mattress is not an effective way to removing dust particles. In fact this housekeeping practice can be a hazardous method that may trigger allergy reactions to those who inhale the dust and house dust mites that are bellowed into the air when the mattress is beaten. Instead of removing dirt and dust particles permanently from the mattress, beating it is simply throwing the micro organism and dirt particles into the air and while the mattress is being sunned, some of the dirt particles would settle back into the mattress or other parts of the home.

Washing of bed linens and mattress protector weekly is enough

As the bed linen and mattress protector used to cover the mattress are regularly washed during regular housekeeping schedule, it is not surprising for owners to think that their mattress is clean and do not see a need for in-depth mattress cleaning unless the mattress has been stained. Contrary to most beliefs, the mattress is like a giant sponge that collects high amount of dirt particles like dust, dead skin flakes, millions of dust mites and other micro organisms. These dirt particles are trapped within the mattress making it the dirtiest.

In fact, these unseen particles and micro organisms have potential to cause more mattress hygiene problems than stains on the mattress. Allergic sufferers who are sensitive to dust and house dust mites may find themselves waking up with runny nose, repeated sneeze, or itchy eyes, when sleeping on a dirty mattress. These are common symptoms that may lead to rhinitis, asthma, and eczema. Even for a healthy person, sleeping on a dirty mattress should be avoided as breathing in the airborne dirt particles and micro organism in the mattress every night definitely does not promise good health.

Using any type of vacuum cleaner to clean

There are many types of vacuum cleaners that are marketed for cleaning mattress and even kill dust mites. There are cheap ones, and some are expensive ones. Some are big and heavy, while some machines are small and light like a toy but promise to perform many functions.

Multi-purpose vacuum cleaners sold in the market are designed to perform multi cleaning tasks, i.e. vacuuming of floor, ceiling, sofa, etc. Unlike professional mattress cleaning system, a multi-purpose vacuum machine is not specially designed and manufactured with a particular key performance function. Thus, a multi-purpose vacuum cleaner can perform a satisfactory job for general cleaning of floor, soft furnishings, ceilings, but not sufficient to perform thorough cleaning of dust, dirt particles and micro organisms, that are deeply embedded inside the thick mattress.

Steam Cleaning is Dry

Steam cleaners are good tools to help remove grease and stubborn stains on hard surface like tiles in toilets, kitchen, outdoor floorings, etc. To add more function into this machine, steam cleaners have been marketed as disinfectant to kill bacteria because of the steam's high temperature.

While steam cleaners can definitely kill bacteria on any surface the steam land on, steam is not recommended to kill bacteria on a fabric soft furnishing like mattress and fabric sofa because moisture from the steam may encourage infestation of mold and mildew in the upholstery's foam. As warned by many mattress manufacturers, cleaning of mattress using moisture may damage the mattress making the mattress less comfortable to sleep on.

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