How to clean a mattress and deal with dust mites
11.09.2026
Quick facts
| Time | 40 minutes plus drying |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | medium |
| You need | vacuum, baking soda, cold water |
| Our price | from 17,50 € per mattress |
A mattress is the piece of furniture you spend a third of your life on and the one nobody cleans. The point is not appearance: it is dust mites, which feed on skin cells and live in exactly that environment.
What you'll need
- baking soda
- cold water with a little washing-up liquid
- an enzyme cleaner for protein stains
- a vacuum with an upholstery head
- white microfibre cloths
- an open window and six hours
Step by step
- Strip the bed and vacuum the whole mattress. Both sides, seams and the edge piping, slowly. This step alone removes most of what matters — everything after it is finishing.
- Sprinkle baking soda and leave it an hour. It draws out moisture and smell. Longer is better; two hours is not wasted.
- Vacuum the soda out completely. Go over it twice. Soda left in the fabric feels gritty and attracts damp.
- Treat stains with foam, never by soaking. Whisk washing-up liquid into cold water and apply only the foam, blotting from the edge inward.
- Use an enzyme cleaner on protein stains. Sweat, blood, urine — an enzyme product breaks them down; detergent only dilutes them and the mark returns as it dries.
- Dry for at least six hours with the window open. This is not optional. Damp inside a mattress is precisely the environment dust mites need.
- Turn and rotate it. While it is bare, flip it or rotate it head to foot — it is the only time you will remember to.
What to use on a mattress — and what not to
| Product | Good for | Do not use on |
|---|---|---|
| Vacuum with upholstery head | dust mites, dust, hair — the basis of the whole job | — |
| Baking soda, left then vacuumed | smell and residual moisture | — |
| Cold water with washing-up liquid (foam) | spot stains | never soak the mattress — it takes days to dry |
| Enzyme cleaner | protein stains: sweat, blood, urine | not hot water, which sets them |
How often to clean a mattress and change bedding
Change bed linen every one to two weeks, vacuum the mattress monthly, extraction-clean it once a year. Replace a mattress after eight to ten years — past that it loses support regardless of how clean it is.
What to watch out for
- A steam cleaner puts moisture deep into the core, which is the opposite of what you want.
- Memory foam must not be soaked at all — foam holds water for days.
- A mattress protector washed at 60 °C does more for dust mites than any cleaning of the mattress itself.
- If you wake up with a blocked nose and it clears during the day, mites are a likely cause and the bedding routine matters more than the mattress.
When to leave it to a professional
Extraction cleaning reaches into the top layer and pulls the dirt back out instead of pushing it deeper, and the mattress is left much drier than after any home attempt. A single mattress starts at 17,50 € — see mattress and upholstery cleaning.
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