[Daren Morrish]

Hallo folks,

Have recently started advertising mattress cleaning along with my normal carpets and upholstery work.

The response has been very good, and i'm getting a steady stream of enquires, (actually more than I expected)

The reason i started cleaning them was obviously to make money, but also as important, was the oportunity to demonstrate my cleaning prowess and hopefully be the man who cleans there carpets etc in the future.

The BIG problem is getting them clean. At the moment around half are cleaning to a standard i'm happy with, the remainder are poor to say the least. It goes without saying if they get a poor result they won't be calling me with any more work, and could even be spreading the word to avoid me.

I'm cleaning with HWE using a CFR hand tool.

Can any one on this forum offer advise regarding getting a mattress squeaky clean.

Cheers Daren

[Jim_77]

With mattresses you need to sell it on the basis of what the clean should be achieving: removal of dust mites and sanitisation.  Visual appearances (mainly regarding the brown rings/patches) can be limited in improvement with mattresses, which is an opinion I don't think many will argue with.

A mattress is not on visible display to visitors - it is covered up with sheets, therefore not a visual problem.  If you market the service from the health & hygiene angle then you can be sure to achieve what you promise, providing your methods & products are right.

This is an ideal application for a colloidal product like m-power or nemesis.  Your HWE with a CFR hand tool is exactly how I do them, finishing off by standing the mattress on edge between two blowers to get it dried off ASAP.

[Ian Gourlay]

Jim

I did do Mattress and will probably do again if I am able to start again

But obviously you now have an all singing dancing truck-mount but did drying times cause you concern with a portable.

Unless you have other work in the house it is not very practical to leave turbos on unless you can call back if reasonably close.

On occasions when I have left them I find customers often switch them off

Has anyone tried Ashbys product or been on their Training Day for cleaning them

[Hilton]

With mattress's its all down to the dry vacuuming and this is where you can get the biggest wow factor.

If you have a designated vacuum solely for use on mattress's make sure the customer see's what has been extracted, they all nearly always shocked at the crap that comes out, emphasise the point that this is mostly dead skin and dust mite carcases and droppings.

As mentioned visual appearance is always limited and disappointing but his is not what you are selling so just make sure the customer is aware of this.

[Jim_77]

Yeah I have a hunter turbo vac which is nice to fill up with a bit of dust and show the customer... then get on with the real part

Ian, as you say other work in the house normally involved so no issues really, otherwise they need to be advised in advance that the mattress might be out of use 24 hours which as long as they know they can work around.

I did take a bit longer extracting with a portable, and also was only using a standard enclosed jet hand tool.  but I used to turn the flow right down and just do some nice slow drying strokes.

[Daren Morrish]

Can anyone on this forum recommend a mattress cleaning course.

I am going to enquire about the Ashbys course tomorrow, but it seems more aimed at the dust mite/germ removal side, rather than actually getting them looking clean.

Or, is there a mattress cleaning guru who would be willing to show / share some top tips!!

Willing to travel (obvious really)

I'm in the Leeds area.

Thanks Daren

[john martin]

most mattresses i do would be for for some cheapskate landlord or agent who has a tenant moving in pronto and they will feel less guilty if they have it 'cleaned '
90% of the stains wont come out ...  u just vac it , spray it , vac it put a blower on it for a while .
most wont want u experimenting with smelly bleach products ...  

I'd say Ashbys will show u how to 'sanitize'   the mattress on  the course .    

[Jim_77]

Darren, I think you're looking for something that's not there

HWE cleaning, with any product, really doesn't get many of those stains out, and post-treatment with browning prescription doesn't really have a great effect either.

If you could charge enough to spend literally all day you might be able to get better results with bleaching methods but unless the mattress is a stupidly expensive one you might as well buy a new one for what it would cost.