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| Big-girl bed |
Have you heard of mattresses off-gassing? Yeah, I hadn't either. And while I'm not stringent about buying all organic, my family and I spend almost half of our lives on or around these mattresses, and I'd like to avoid as many toxins as possible! I first found out about off-gassing at Eco-Novice. (She has some great resources in her post!) Unfortunately, I don't know where to find a king-size futon, so we couldn't do what she did, and we cannot justify spending thousands of dollars on an organic mattress. So I decided that the next best option would be to wrap our mattress. I purchased a queen/king-size mattress wrap from No-Chem Bed Solutions, and we ordered the cheap frugal Walmart mattress. The night we ordered the mattress, I was lamenting to Hubby that I wished we could just make our own mattress. He pulled up Google.
Did you know people actually make their own mattresses?! I was so excited. I began planning how I could made a straw mattress out of drop cloths. We also researched making our own feather bed, and I thought maybe I'd make a smaller topper for our straw bed. Do you think I've gone completely crazy? Well, we won't be making our own mattresses any time soon (though I am not ruling it out once the kids' need replaced), as Hubby is balking at the work it would take. So we are settling for our wrapped Walmart mattress. It should be arriving at our local store for pick up on Monday.
I think I am going to wrap our other mattresses, too. It was going to be a little-at-a-time thing, as the wraps aren't exactly cheap, but I saw a great DIY post on mattress wrapping this morning at Embracing the Season. You know I'll be visiting Home Depot soon.
What about you? How safe are your mattresses? Do you care?
I've heard about this...the same issues are there with carpet and big furniture like your sofa. Haven't honestly thought about doing anything about it, but maybe the next time we buy a mattress :-)
ReplyDeleteHow bout a trip to Lowe's instead ;)
ReplyDelete_bekah
I bought three mattress wraps from the No-Chem Bed Solutions company because I was worried about off-gassing toxins in our mattresses. They advertise their wraps as food-grade plastic protection from off-gassing. Well, the once the wrap arrived and I pulled it out of the packaging, I found that the wrap itself smelled like a chemical factory and made our whole house smell toxic! I was stunned and a little confused. I left the wrap out in our guest bedroom for two nights. Finally, I realized the smell was getting worse not better and repackaged it. I had to air out the room it had been in for several days and to wash all the sheets that had touched it. I just put another sheet in the wash this morning which still smells toxic after a week of airing out! I contacted the company to ask about returns and they did not offer any explanation for the chemical smell; they did not apologize for the inconvenience — they just curtly told me I couldn’t return the wrap I had “used.” I bought three wraps so they will allow me to return the unopened ones but I will have to pay for shipping. A really poorly run company and I would not risk ordering from them. And, regardless, if you are worried about chemicals in your bed I would not recommend sleeping on this massive wrap of stinky plastic.
ReplyDeleteThat's unfortunate that you had a bad experience with the wrap. Ours had no scent whatsoever. Still, we only used it on our bed for about 6 months, then I transferred it to our son's bed. Hubby couldn't deal with the noise.
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