Afraid Of Your Mattress?

Redirection the Key to a Good Magic Trick?

Redirection or misdirection, were you aware that the mattress industry and the government are now protecting us from ourselves? You may want to research for yourself. There is a new mattress safety law and whether you smoke or not isn’t the issue. The issue in question is, are we any safer in our beds than we were before the new mattress law went into effect? Are you afraid of your mattress?

Reasons For The Mattress Law

Approximately 300 deaths a year and over a thousand injuries.

What They Did To Make Us Safer

The CPSC has required that all mattress prototypes must pass 3 timed burn tests.  The heat is measured in BTU’s. If the heat exceeds the mandated levels they all fail and expensive research & development of a mattress that can pass mandated testing then continues. Mountains of traceable paperwork must follow a mattress manufacturing process which is time-consuming and expensive.

Who Was Against The Mattress Law?

Virtually every mattress manufacturer was against it in the beginning according to industry insiders. The rumor was that “Brand Name Mattress Companies were too” until they realized the expenses involved to comply. It was said this would be a way that they could eliminate small manufacturers of mattresses who could not afford to comply while reducing competition. I’d love to hear more from people inside the industry who know more than I do on this matter.

How Do Mattress Manufacturers Pass the Tests?

This has been fairly secretive by mattress manufacturers who are required by law to disclose mattress contents on the “Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law Label”. Strangely they are not required to disclose how they made the bed “safer” for you and your family. Is it because the CPSC was blinded by their lofty ambitions to make mattresses “safer” for a few of us that they overlooked the masses of people that would have been otherwise unaffected had they just left well enough alone?

Did Mattress Quality Suffer Since The Fire Law Was Implemented?

Just read the forums, websites, and blogs and one would have to think so. The truth is that it is easier and cheaper to make a one-sided mattress that complies with the law than a two-sided mattress. One-sided mattresses can not be flipped over. I challenge you to go see how many new 2-sided mattresses you find in your local store.

What Should Mattress Buyers Do Now?

Mattress buyers have some choices if they are informed.

You can have your mattress made without the fire retardants if you can get a doctor’s prescription. Does this mean people with allergies, asthma, and chemical sensitivities are getting the message?  As of the time of this post STL Beds has received NO prescriptions since July 1 2007 the day the mattress law changed.

A person can buy the new “safer mattresses” and hope that the chemical content levels are so rarely disclosed by mattress mfgs. are actually safe. To my knowledge, there was no long term study to determine if we were safe from both nightly chemical absorption through the skin or inhalation. Don’t we spend 1/3 of our lives in bed?

Option 3 is to look at mattresses that pass the laws naturally with no chemicals. This was the route STL Beds has chosen to add a third option. We are not here to tell people that we have all the facts. We are just here to say that there are a lot more questions than mattress retailers, manufacturers and the CPSC seem to have answers for.