World enews: Nurse warns against placing mattress on the floor

A woman has warned people who are thinking of putting their mattress on the floor without a bed frame to think again.

Ellie Peach, a registered nurse who goes by the username @eswift95 on TikTok, shared what happened when she decided to sleep without a bed frame for six months. “I love being an independent 20 something teenager,” the video’s caption read.

“So this is just a PSA to everyone thinking of cutting costs and not getting a bed frame and just thinking, ‘Oh, mattresses can just go on the floor,’” Peach began the story. “Hypothetically, one could want to change their mattress after the summertime – after it’s been on said floor for six months – and they may remove their mattress and they may find mould everywhere,” Peach said.

The nurse then explained that the situation was not hypothetical, and it had actually happened to her. “First world problems,” she said. Peach admitted that the mattress was purchased for her as part of an advertisement she was supposed to make with the brand Koala. Her original intention was to use the sponsored mattress as a daybed – a bed that is treated like a couch – but because the mattress was “so comfortable” she decided to make it her actual mattress.

“So I changed it out with my old mattress and I thought, ‘What is that god-awful smell?’” she said. Peach said the mould was “everywhere” including the carpet underneath the mattress. She tried to remove the mould herself but said she was unsuccessful and had to get the carpets professionally cleaned.

“And I also can’t sleep in there because I’m convinced I’m going to die of mould inhalation, so I’m in the living room,” she concluded the TikTok. Since it was posted on 13 August, the clip has been viewed almost 400,000 times with more than 200 comments.

Some commenters suggested that Peach could continue to have a floor mattress if she allowed it to air out by flipping it over or leaning it against a wall. “Y’all just lean the mattress against the wall when you go to work or something,” one commenter wrote. “I think if you have a floor mattress you’re meant to lift and air it like every week,” another agreed.

A third person advised people with mattresses on the floor to “top them up onto the side for a day or something every month” to let it breathe and dry out, especially “in the humidity.”

Peach ended up scaring some of the other commenters who shared that they were currently sleeping without a bed frame. “I’m now terrified. I’ve had my mattress on the floor for like a year,” one commenter wrote.

Others informed Peach that she isn’t alone and the exact same incident happened to them too. “That was me once, thankfully without a carpet,” one commenter mentioned. Another person who was in the same position wrote: “This happened to me too!!!!”

“I feel really silly because everyone in the comments is saying ‘you need milk crates or pallets?!’ And I just don’t know where they learnt this or maybe I just having been paying attention to important life lessons,” Peach said in a statement to The Independent.

“Anyway, the situation is being resolved and I’ve learnt my lesson – your mattress needs to breathe!”