We purchased an organic latex bed from Sleep EZ back in 2010 for my son. He is now much older (16) and we discovered that he had NOT been putting the fitted sheets on his bed. Was sleeping directly on the zip on mattress cover. The cover doesn’t have a law tag. It just has the SleepEZ logo on the one end. The top cover says organic cotton and obviously has wool in it. The sides do not say organic cotton and have some quilting. The bottom is just a rough feeling material with no quilting. Is this cotton?
He had the flu for the last 10 days and my phoned me at work and said she was cleaning everything in his room as it smelled like death. She took the latex mattress covers off the 3" topper and the 6" bed. The bed had the cotton/wool zip on cover and the topper had a zip on cover (I think cotton.).
She washed the topper cover on the sanitize cycle in a Miele washing machine (guaranteed 158F water temp) and dried in the dryer. The topper cover seemed to come out ok. The 3" latex core seemed to fit fine once the cover was back on and we fluffed/shook the layer in the cover for best distribution.
The wool/cotton cover however smells to high heaven like a chemical/electrical burn. She washed this on the warm wool cycle since she knew it had wool in it. That water temp is 115F. She had it on the wool cycle in the dryer for about 10 minutes when I said to take it out and just drape it over the ledge. We put some box fans on it and are drying it at room temp.
I know now, after reading on sleezEZ website that the cover should not be washed. Is the concern just with shrinkage of the cover or are there chemicals that we need to be concerned with? I am assuming the stench on the cover is just wet wool. I have washed wool sweaters before and they smell different, but I am assuming it is a different type of wool.
Could anyone comment if there are any chemicals that we need to worry about with washing the cover or is it just shrinkage and awful wet wool smell until it is dry? I understand we might have felted some of the wool and that may affect the fire barrier, but he has had the topper on the bed the whole time and it has no wool in it so I am less concerned about that.
New covers are expensive and if we can get ten years out of the existing one (get it dry and put the latex back inside) then I figure I will have done good.
My wife said there was no way it was just going to be aired out. She said when she took the cover off there were food crumbs and all manner of dirt, dust, etc. under the cover. She vacuumed off the latex with the horse hair duster tool and left the layers on the platform bed. The cover she said smelled like three year old BO with mixed in rotten food. (Why do boys do this?)
Thanks for reading and I look forward to the reply.