The Mattress Saga

Around the same week that the world stopped because of the coronavirus, my husband began to complain that he was having trouble sitting on the bed to put on his shoes.

I initially thought it had something to do with the ankle surgery he had in November. I solved the problem by bringing a kitchen chair into the bedroom so he could sit and put on his shoes.

However, when Saturday came and it was time to change the linens, I discovered that the mattress on his side of the bed was bulging out about three inches. Super bulging, actually. This was why he couldn't sit on the bed - the mattress was collapsing.

We'd purchased the mattress in June 2012. At that time, my husband was complaining constantly of his back hurting and I thought a new mattress would help the problem; it did. Score one for the wife.

I hunted up the warranty paperwork. To find the warranty, it said, one had to look at the "do not remove" tag on the mattress.

This tag was hidden from me, as we have a hypoallergenic cover on the mattress. And of course the tag, once I felt around for it, was not at the end that opened. The mattress cover had to be removed.

This mattress is huge and fat. It weighs about 150 pounds. I can barely lift a corner to get the sheets tucked in properly. After much cursing, tugging, and pulling, I got the mattress cover off and threw it in the wash.

I took pictures of the tag with the information I needed. My husband came in and helped me put the now-clean mattress cover back on it. We left the tag at the zipper end. We also turned the mattress so that the bulge was down at my feet and not at our upper bodies.

We'd purchased this mattress from Haverty's. Haverty's went out of business locally in 2013, though I understand the chain still exists in other places. Nowhere near us, though.

I contacted the furniture store we use now, and asked if they could help. The manager called me back with a number to call for the mattress manufacturer. I called that number. A nice woman told me that my mattress still was under warranty but I should deal with the store from which I bought the mattress.

After much explaining, she understood that the store is no longer in my area. The mattress warranty then fell under the mattress manufacturer. They needed pictures. They needed to be sure the mattress wasn't soiled or otherwise misused. They also needed a picture of the silk tag identifying the mattress.

The silk tag, of course, was at the end of the mattress under the cover and not where the thing zips up.

We waited until the next Saturday, because I change the bed linens every weekend, to take the mattress cover off again and take pictures. We took every photo I could think to take, including one with a ruler showing the bulge, and measurements of the mattress across the bottom and at the bulge. We could also see that the mattress was bulging on the sides in other areas, so total failure at some point was imminent.

The is the biggest bulge in the mattress.

Our effort to measure the bulge.

I went to the website and submitted the photos, the warranty information, the receipt, and everything else they had asked for.

Then I received a notice that they needed more pictures. Sigh.

I called to see what they needed, because I couldn't imagine what there was left to take a photo of. The helpful person on the phone put me on hold, reviewed the photos, and immediately approved my claim.

Then she looked up what an exchange mattress would be, because mattresses do not stay the same. They change every year, like clothing, so that you can't go back the following year and purchase the exact same mattress.

It seems to me that if one makes a good product, one should stick with that, but I'm not a manufacturer or in retail, so perhaps there is some profit motive I am missing. I also think a mattress with a 10-year full replacement warranty and 25 years of some kind of restitution after that would last at least 10 years, but it didn't. (I think refrigerators, dishwashers, and washers and dryers also should last a good 25 years or more, like they used to do, but they don't anymore.)

At any rate, the next step was to test the mattress the helpful lady said would be the replacement.

The furniture stores here are not completely closed. They have limited hours. But I have been trying hard to self-isolate (up until yesterday) because of my asthma and my propensity to catch every virus that flies past me in the air.

So we did not go straight out to test a mattress. The company gave us 90 days to do that because of the current shut-downs and the virus situation.

Since we had to go out yesterday to take care of my husband's retirement paperwork, we decided to go by the furniture store and check out the mattress. My husband had called around on Saturday and found a store that had one.

When we reached the store, they would not allow us in because they were limiting patrons to 10 at a time. I did not mind the wait. I thought this was a good thing. One person came out and the man doing the counting said one of us could go in. I told my husband to go in and check out the mattress and then he could come out and I could go check out the mattress. He put on his mask and went inside.

Later another person left and the man motioned that I could join my husband. I put on my mask and went inside. I tested the mattress, which my husband thought was great. I thought it was a little hard but I actually sleep on a bed wedge anyway, for the most part, and not on the mattress.

My husband said that was the mattress he wanted.

Yesterday I called the mattress company again to order the mattress. I was told that (a) the plant is not operating at the moment and (b) if I ordered one now, it would be delivered to the doorstep and dropped off. Or I could wait and call back after May 15 and see if they were bringing items into homes and setting up the mattresses.

The man on the phone told me the new mattress would weigh 153 pounds. That is very heavy.

The part of me that is concerned about off-gassing from this mattress wouldn't mind letting it sit in the garage for a few days before we tried to sleep on it. However, the part of me that knows there is no way my husband and I could remove the old mattress and bring in the new one won out, and I will call back after May 15.

In the meantime, I am hoping the mattress holds together and we don't end up on the floor. We don't have a spare bedroom and the couch isn't made for sleeping.

I don't think this is something duct tape can fix.

So we've also had this going on in the midst of this pandemic. A sagging mattress. It is always something.