When should you change your mattress? This isn’t a cut and dried answer, though there are obvious signs that the current mattress needs to go. Here are a few tips on when you should change your mattress.
When It Smells
You should change a mattress when it starts to smell. It doesn’t matter if the smell is due to biological accidents that seeped into the mattress, mold and mildew because it now hosts a fungal colony or you cannot tell what the cause is. If the mattress smells, it is becoming a health hazard and needs to be replaced.
When You Think It Is the Source of Your Bug Bites
You should replace your mattress if you think the bed is the source of any bites you’re getting at night. The prominent example is bed bug bites; in this case, you have to replace the mattress and the bed frame. Then thoroughly vacuum the floor, have your bedroom treated, the bed frame disposed of and sleep somewhere else for a while. You may need to wash all your clothes repeatedly and store stuffed animals in plastic bags for at least a month to ensure that you get rid of all the critters.
Another time you need to replace the mattress is if it is hosting any other colony of insects. For example, a bed may be hosting a colony of spiders that are eating your dust mites and periodically bite you in the process. You can have the bedding washed to kill most of the dust mites and the bedroom sprayed for spiders. Yet it is far simpler to just replace the bed.
When It No Longer Holds Up
You should replace a mattress when it no longer holds up, regardless of its age. If you’ve constantly sat on the edge of the bed while getting dressed in the morning, the sides could start to sag well before the five year mark.
If your kids ever jump on the bed, they wear out the springs at a vastly accelerated rate. And the center of the bed will start to sag no matter what you do. In these cases, the solution is to replace the mattress. This is especially true if turning it and flipping it no longer gets rid of the indents in the bed.
Another issue is the load your body puts on the mattress. If you have a mattress that isn’t firm enough or strong enough to support you, you’ll be uncomfortable as you sink into it even as the high load causes it to warp and deform. You can try to add memory foam mattress covers to the bed, but the real solution is replacing the existing mattress with one that provides the right level of support for your body.
When It Hurts to Get Out of Bed
You need to replace the mattress when it seems like you feel worse in the morning than you did when you went to bed. Your mattress may be the cause of your neck, back, shoulder and hip pain because it isn’t providing enough support; the pressure points on these joints cause arthritic joints in particular to hurt in the morning.
If your body is stiff in the morning, this is another sign your mattress doesn’t give you the right level of support anymore. If you have specific points of pain, this could be a sign of a lumpy mattress or springs breaking through their coil covers to poke you at night.
If you’ve ever slept on the couch or in the recliner and found it to be more comfortable, you definitely need a new mattress.
When Too Much Time Has Passed
You need to replace a mattress when the surface is worn and the padding on top has become too thin. It is going to wear out in five to ten years by design, depending on wear and tear patterns. You should replace a mattress over ten years old no matter what because it likely contains as toxic levels of dust mites, chemicals, dust and other debris anyway.