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What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

fivethirtyeight.com

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Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#291

Post by werber »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #61
werber wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.amazon.com/Zinus-Memory-Green-Mattress-Queen/dp/... I've had several friends go out and buy it after a night on mine. I've had it for ~3 years and haven't noticed any degradation. After trying much more expensive (and heavily advertised) ones other people own, I can't really tell the difference.

I have the same mattress. Almost never give it a second thought, which is what I really want in a mattress. Some reviews complain of a fishy smell but I didn't encounter it with mine but there are enough reviews with that complain that I wonder if there are multiple manufacturing pipelines, one of which leads to a fishy smelling mattress.

it did smell weird when I opened it, but from what I remember they clearly stated, hey, let this inflate and air out

Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#292

Post by wccrawford »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #90
pathartl wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure this is good advice. I like a firm mattress, but IKEA mattresses are absolutely terrible. I also cannot sleep with a foam topper on any bed. They're hot and screw up my back beyond belief.

Ikea sells different types of mattress (spring, foam, latex), each with different thicknesses and price points. I've bought ~10 Ikea mattresses, avoided the cheapest ones of each type, and been pretty happy. I can understand why a foam topper would feel hot. It's main purpose is to provide a sleeping surface that's the same shape as your body, so of course this means it maximises the amount of contact between you and…

I bought a foam mattress on Woot at one point. At first, I loved it. Best sleep I'd had in a long time.

After about a year or 2, I started to notice that I was not getting good sleep and my back was achy a lot.

I got a new bed with a more conventional mattress, and I was a lot happier with my sleep again.

The old mattress? I gave it to my mother. "Best sleep" situation for her again, but after a while she replaced it.

I think initially the comfort is amazing, but either it slowly erodes your back's health, or you slowly learn to sleep differently on it, and it hurts your back. At least, that's how it seemed for us.

Totally unscientific, but that was my experience.

Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#293

Post by rusticpenn »

Stratoscope wrote: post #106
ghaff wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I would count on that :-) I'm also not sure how I feel about the foam mattresses. That's one type of mattress I don't have a lot of experience sleeping on and my initial reaction in the store was it was "different" to a degree that I wasn't sure what to make of it. Also, I tend to be hot generally including when sleeping. From what I've read, a foam mattress may not be a great choice given that.

If you sleep hot, memory foam is what you want to stay away from. You sink down into it and it molds around your body. Non-memory latex foam lets you sleep much cooler because you don't sink into it so much. I also tend to be too warm and have used latex foam mattresses for the last 20 years. They have been fine, unlike memory foam.

I am having heat boils on my back sleeping on an expensive Latex (which is designed to breathe very well). I have no idea what to go for next.

Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#294

Post by pathartl »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #131
rahimnathwani wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ikea sells different types of mattress (spring, foam, latex), each with different thicknesses and price points. I've bought ~10 Ikea mattresses, avoided the cheapest ones of each type, and been pretty happy. I can understand why a foam topper would feel hot. It's main purpose is to provide a sleeping surface that's the same shape as your body, so of course this means it maximises the amount of contact between you and…

>I've bought ~10 Ikea mattresses, avoided the cheapest ones of each type, and been pretty happy. You've bought ten mattresses from them?! In how many years, and for how many people? I don't think my parents bought ten mattresses in the 20-odd years they had their four kids living at home - and I still sleep on one of them. Personally I don't trust anything from Ikea anymore. Their quality is such garbage for all thei…

> Personally I don't trust anything from Ikea anymore. Their quality is such garbage for all their products from furniture to glassware to lamps, I can't give them a dime of my money knowing whatever I buy won't be around next year. Multiply whatever you were going to spend by 1.5 and go to a decent home store, or just go to Target instead.

IKEA is such a hit and miss. For the price, their ceramicware is pretty good. All of their glassware is cheap and too small. They can have a really nice real-wood dining room table for $500, or a glued together entertainment unit for $2000.

I generally find they have good quality for wood dining chairs, wood tables, BEKANT desks, and rechargeable batteries.

Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#295

Post by Retric »

ramraj07 wrote: post #278
Retric wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IKEA for example sells a lot of mattresses under 150$. Under that you can just by foam pads, but the biggest savings is simply avoiding mattress stores or companies. If you like pillow tops or those egg shell foam pads you can also just buy them separately.

I've slept on a 150 dollar Ikea for years and I've slept on a leesa. Maybe these conspiracy theories are true, but the Leesa is much more comfortable than the cheap Ikea. Ikea also has more expensive substantial mattress options, but it looks like they approach the same price range anyway. So what's your real suggestion then? Sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag?

Personal preference does not make any option objectively better. So, my suggestion is to explore your options. I enjoy a 4” foam pad on plywood over several thousand dollar mattresses, but it’s not a question of cost just comfort. Water beds are another cheap option that have largely fallen out of favor.

PS: Body weight is a huge part of this. Gain or lose significant weight and your preference is likely to change.

Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#296

Post by bcrosby95 »

OJFord wrote: post #268
lmm wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwing away a cheap one is much less of a waste than throwing away an expensive one?

To whom or what? The expensive one not thrown away was replaced free of charge by the same model but not broken.

Both of those broke in a way that couldn't be repaired in a year. So instead of buying a $600 umbrella that unfixably breaks every year, I buy a couple $50 ones. The $50 ones are actually more repairable since they're wood instead of metal.

Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#297

Post by giarc »

bsanr2 wrote: post #285
giarc wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I wonder how many people buy a mattress, never open it, "return it for refund" then just resell a "unused, unopened mattress"?

The amount of effort and time required would just barely be covered by the profit. You also have to store it until sale. That's probably what keeps this from becoming a widespread scam.

I think you underestimate people's desire to scam the system. Buy $1000 mattress, leave in box, "return" mattress and get $1000 refund. Sell online (instead of donating) for $300-400. Rinse, repeat.

Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#298

Post by ingend88 »

bsanr wrote: post #30

I'd thought I'd get around the madness of mattress shopping by using just the technique mentioned in the article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22377160 At least, until I found something I liked. I purchased a Purple 3, thinking that if I loved it, I'd just stick with it. I did love it, but I couldn't justify spending $2k on a twin(!). I returned it, and purchased from another company for ~$700. I didn't…

Which company does not have a return option ? I also tried purple and it made me very cautious.

Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#299

Post by WorldPeas »

Now I can finally feel like a smug eco-warrior by sleeping on the same queen mattress I used as a teenager.

In all seriousness though, these companies should make it easier to put their mattresses back in their box, especially if it means they could avoid something like this. I seem to recall my old air mattress could easily be deflated by running the pump in reverse, fitting in a tiny bag. Would it be too hard to have a re-compression pump that could be shipped back for a rebate with shipping included if you decide to keep the mattress? Re-compressing the mattresses would probably also make it easier to cram a bunch of them into some sort of extreme-temperature vault so any bedbugs or other pests could be exterminated before re-use.

Re: What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

#300

Post by hispanic »

throw7 wrote: post #145

I never liked the space a bed takes up so I decided to look into alternatives some years ago when it started to offer less support. I always had a futon so I immediately switched to that. I also bought a cheap hammock and built some hammock stands to use it indoors. I didn't have any problems adjusting to the futon; that's what I sleep on most of the time today. I'm also pretty sure I'd have no problems with a japane…

> I was also initially interested on trying to train myself to sleep on a flat floor...

I've been sleeping on the floor for over two years now. At this point, I prefer it to sleeping in a bed. I started out by creating a "mattress" made of several layers of blankets. Now, though, I just put a sheet on my low-pile carpet and that's all I sleep on. I also use a relatively flat/thin pillow.

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