Did I ruin my mattress

Hi guys, so I wasnt aware of the importance of waterproof mattress protector, and I kinda had a puke acciddent on my IKEA Sultan mattress. I’ve tried my best to clean the mattress with hydrogen peroxide, liquid detergent, baking soda, and vinegar. I then put a lot of baking soda on it and let it sit over night. The mattress has sagged and the pillow top has deformed but at parts far away from the stain and accident. Also the middle has really sagged. I’m also an extremely sweaty sleeper. I’ve been improving my habits recently, but I’m wondering the sagging middle is due to the moisture caused by the accident/sweat, or a build defect (the accident is somewhere else) . Anyway the puke left a very light stain (still kinda visible) so I don’t know about warranty claims. If I get the mattress deep cleaned or steam cleaned, can that fix the foam and sagging if it was caused by the moisture from the sweat?

Hi helpmattress,

As you mentioned a mattress protector is always a good idea with any mattress to protect your mattress from stains and the body fluids, skin cells, oils that we release each night, to protect against spills and accidents, and to keep your sleeping surface in a clean and hygienic condition. It will also protect your warranty because mattress warranties are usually voided with any type of stain on a mattress. There is more about the pros and cons of different types of mattress protectors in post #89 here that can help you decide which type would be best for you.

It sounds like you’ve already removed the stain but there is some good information about cleaning a mattress and spot cleaning any stains here and here and here that may be helpful.

It’s also very important to make sure that the mattress is completely dry before you put your sheets and bedding back on the mattress (see post #2 here).

I don’t know which of the Ikea mattresses you have but moisture and humidity can speed up the softening and breakdown of polyfoam and memory foam. I don’t know if that’s the reason that your mattress is sagging though and and there are also other reasons that could be the cause as well (including low quality/density foam materials that don’t last very long).

It’s very difficult to “fix” a mattress that has softened or is sagging if the problem is in the mattress materials themselves because the most effective solution would be to remove and replace the layers and components that are the cause of the sagging or to replace the mattress itself. Having said that, there are some suggestions in post #4 here that may be helpful … at least as a partial or temporary solution.

Phoenix

What a great reply Pheonix. All of this is so informative and I’m going to dive into the links you just posted. Would you recommend attempting to get someone to treat and steam clean the mattress and see if it completely removes the stain as to get my warranty claim on the quickly deteriorating foam on an unrelated part of the mattress?

[strike]Also, if I buy a 2" memory foam topper, would that relieve the lumpiness of the mattress and stop hurting my back?[/strike]

Scratch that, one of your posts says otherwise :frowning:

Hi helpmattress,

Any stain or evidence of stain removal will generally void most warranties and this type of stain would probably qualify as “abuse” because you didn’t have a mattress protector. It can’t do any harm to see if you qualify for a warranty claim because of the sagging but I wouldn’t have any high expectations that it would be approved.

I would be cautious with steam cleaning because high heat and moisture can damage foam materials. The suggestions I linked should remove the stains but if they don’t then you can have it professionally cleaned although your warranty would probably still be void even if the stains are removed if there are any remaining stains or any evidence of stain removal.

A topper may help with some of the “lumpiness” if the foam has broken down and the “lumps” are coming from the springs underneath the foam but a topper probably won’t help much with a mattress that has softened or is sagging because the topper will just follow the sags in the mattress and in some cases adding a softer topper can make back issues even worse.

Phoenix