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Bare double mattress with a blue-edged quilted top in a bedroom with slatted oak wall panelling and two black reading lights

Deep-cleaning a mattress and how often it is worth it

How often a mattress actually needs cleaning, according to the NHS and a manufacturer: weekly vacuuming, bicarbonate every few months, and a protector.

A mattress needs vacuuming once a week if it has no protector, a bicarbonate-and-vacuum clean every three to six months, and airing every morning. Those are the intervals the NHS and a mattress manufacturer give, and a fitted protector moves most of the weekly work into the washing machine. A deep clean is a morning's job, not an afternoon's, and the only rule that really matters is that nothing gets soaked.

Three things accumulate: dead skin, sweat and the moisture from breathing, and dust mites that live on the first two. The mites are the reason the intervals exist. They aren't dangerous in themselves, but their droppings are what trigger allergies, and a mattress is the largest, warmest, most humid piece of fabric in the flat.

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