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Even thebest mattressesyou can buy this year don’t clean themselves.

This means regularmattress cleaningis essential to maintaining strong sleep hygiene and a healthy environment.

A person wearing rubber gloves uses a spray bottle and a clean cloth to clean the surface of the Emma Elite mattress.

3 things you’ll find in a dirty mattress

1.

Bed bugs

Bed bugs are pests that lurk in your mattress and feed off your blood.

Plus they’re good at hiding.

A woman’s hand holding a magnifying glass magnifying bed bugs on a mattress

Therefore, the firstsigns of a bed bug infestationmay not be spotting an actual bug crawling along your mattress.

Another obvious indication is bites.

These appear small, red and sometimes lumpy and often come in clusters or straight lines.

An unmade bed with white bedding bunched up at the end, against a wooden headboard

Dead skin

Your skin cells are constantly shedding and renewing.

On average, skin cells regenerate every 28 to 42 days.

How often should you clean a mattress?

A hand holds a vacuum mattress cleaner on the surface of a mattress, vacuuming for bed bugs, dust mites, dirt and allergens

Whilechanging your bedsheetsshould be a weekly chore, you should ideallydeep clean your mattressevery six months.

However, some circumstances could mean your mattress demands more regular cleaning.

For even better results, you could sprinklebaking sodaon your mattress before vacuuming it.

A couple moving a white mattress, with one carrying each end of the mattress

Using baking soda is a non-toxic, cost effect method of cleaning your bed.

It will absorb moisture and odor-causing particles, effectively freshening and deodorizing it.

Make a concoction of equal parts white vinegar and water with a couple of drops of dish soap.

Vacuum cleaning a mattress

Using a spray bottle, apply this to your mattress, concentrating it on stained areas.

Work it in with a cloth and allow to air dry.

Your mattress can become saturated with moisture as we sweat and expend body oils through the night.

Image shows a person in blue disposable gloves pointing to bed bugs on a mattress

Ensure you do this in a well-ventilated room.

This also helps to preventmattress mold.

Bed linens crumpled on a white mattress

Image shows a person wearing purple disposable gloves using a pink cloth to clean yellow stains from the top of a white mattress

Bed bugs

Blue Jimmy BX7 Pro mattress vacuum on white mattress

A woman with brown hair lies on her stomach on a grey colour Japanese floor mattress

A mattress we tested is dressed with neutral colour bed linens and pillows

A woman with an afro sleeping on her side covered in grey duvet while she sweats in her sleep, thinking of a cooling mattress.

Casper Wave Hybrid Snow review: woman lying on the mattress on her side, with her head on a pillow

Woman smiling while she sleeps with headphones in and her arms overhead

Five Copilot+ PCs shown side by side