posted
Comment: My wife and I have recently been mattress shopping and were told by multiple salespersons at different outlets that "the average mattress will double its weight in ten years as a result of being filled with dust mites and their waste".
I find this hard to believe and it sounds like a scare tactic for selling mattresses.
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-------------------- Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish Posts: 2036 | From: Virginia | Registered: Jul 2002
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Indeed, this is bandied about because the 'asthma prevention' market is huge.
Any increase in weight would be negligible, a few grams a year. Let's face it, unless we humans happen to be allergic bed bugs don't bother anybody.
-------------------- This is where I come up with something right? Something really clever... Posts: 6552 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2002
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A rather preposterous number. Remember, every bit of the mass these purported mites add to the mattress would have to come from material they consumed (plus a considerable amount of consumed food used for energy). You don't shed that much dead skin...
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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Perhaps if they were talking about density, not weight. The foam is crushed and becomes more compact over time, but I doubt even that could account for those numbers.
-------------------- /Troberg Posts: 4360 | From: Borlänge, Sweden | Registered: Nov 2005
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Bedbugs are 0.4 cm bloodsucking insects. Dust mites are teeny-tiny arachnids that eat dead skin flakes. It is the mites that cause allergic reaction, but I think the bugs are more viscerally repulsive because you can see them, and they bite.
Posts: 105 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Jun 2006
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So, if I had a mattress that was 30 years old, it would weigh as much as 8 new mattresses? I don't think so...
-------------------- One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds. -Frank Zappa Posts: 135 | From: Utah | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by liebeslied: Bedbugs are 0.4 cm bloodsucking insects. Dust mites are teeny-tiny arachnids that eat dead skin flakes. It is the mites that cause allergic reaction, but I think the bugs are more viscerally repulsive because you can see them, and they bite.
Ya, any bug you can see will freak you out more than something you need a magnify glass to find.
On the other hand, isn't the allergic reaction caused by dust mites mostly due to their poop balls? (wiki)
Posts: 629 | From: Greenwood, IN | Registered: Dec 2005
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I don't know.. Ever move a used mattress up 3 flights of stairs?... They seem to get heavy every flight you go up...
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The main difference between men and women is that women need a reason to have sex, and men just need a place. Posts: 206 | From: Evansville, Indiana USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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So, a 400 year old mattress, if it stayed the same size, would become degenerate matter and further collapse to form a black hole that could eventually swallow the planet.
Best to burn that sucker nice and early just to be sure.
Blues
Posts: 207 | From: Woolhampton, Berks, UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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I just can't imagine what a 400 year old mattress would smell like anyway... eewwww...
-------------------- Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right, and the other is a husband
The main difference between men and women is that women need a reason to have sex, and men just need a place. Posts: 206 | From: Evansville, Indiana USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Actually, it would smell fine. Smell comes from molecules drifting away/knock from the object. As the mattress would be a singularity by then, no molecules could escape. The same is true of light, of course :-)
Blues
Posts: 207 | From: Woolhampton, Berks, UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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That same tack was used for selling us a Kirby vacuum cleaner - they have powerful suction and the bags are supposedly micro-something that don't let out even the dust mite excrement, which they said was the cause of most allergic/asthmatic reactions. Considering the weight of the stuff that collects in the bags over time, I tend to think a few grams is understating it. My asthma has improved markedly since we moved somewhere with no carpeting and we vacuum the mattress occasionally, so I guess I'm one of the lucky allergic ones.
We had some pretty ancient mattresses that my grandparents had used for decades, when we first got married, and those suckers weighed a ton. That may have been in part, though, the materials they were made from.
-------------------- Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't. Posts: 285 | From: Woodbridge, NJ | Registered: Jul 2006
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the weight doubling is mostly due to sweat. You sweat a lot when you sleep and it gets soaked into the mattress.
Brainiac did a test where they put a matress into a prepared (moisture free) room with a dehumidifier.
This mattress had been used for less than a week and they got something like 2 litres of yellowish liquid from it
Posts: 824 | From: England | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by abigsmurf: This mattress had been used for less than a week and they got something like 2 litres of yellowish liquid from it
They must have forgotten to put the waterproof mattress cover on first
-------------------- "I'm singing and deranged!" Posts: 239 | From: Georgia | Registered: Dec 2004
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Bill Bryson cites a weigth gain of 10% after two years in his book 'A short history of nearly everything'.
Posts: 142 | From: Netherlands | Registered: Aug 2005
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Not sure. I'm a science writer myself, and while I have some gripings, I wouldn't be able to write something like that myself. However, if you feel like you should be getting some more info about science, 'The Science of Discworld' by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen deals with pretty much the same stuff, and doesn't have the endless name-droppings. It's intertwined with fantasy fiction, though. Wait five years and find me a publisher, and maybe I'll be able to cook up a popular science book that you like better.
Posts: 142 | From: Netherlands | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ana Ng: I wanted so badly to like that book and it bored the pants off me... am I missing something?
The key is to forget everything you might have learned after reading it. Works wonders for me.
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