We received a rather frantic email from a client that had purchased a new mattress just 2 months earlier. "Help! We brought the dog onto the boat and he ran right into the cabin, leaped up on the berth and peed! What should we do?"
If your dog (or your grandchild) pees on your mattress and you didn't have a waterproof mattress protector in place, you need to act quickly to prevent staining, odours and mould.
Here are our go to steps for managing this problem:
Step 1: Soak up the liquid
Using paper towels or regular towels, soak up as much of the liquid as you can. Keep changing the towel until it is no longer soaking up any liquid
Step 2: Use baking soda
Sprinkle baking soda on the wet spot and let it sit for a while. This will help soak up any remaining liquid and absorb odour. Vacuum to remove the baking soda.
Step 3: Clean with vinegar
If you can see a stain, use equal parts vinegar and water to try to remove the stain. Go easy on the water - you don't want to introduce more liquid than necessary during this process.
Step 4: Check the foam
Once you have cleaned up the top of the mattress, unzip the cover and check to see if the foam is wet and stained. If it is, repeat steps 1 through 3 again
Step 5: Dry the mattress
For a smaller stain, you may be able to use a hair dryer to fully dry the cover and foam. This may take up to 30 minutes of constant drying. Make sure you let the mattress cool before checking to see if it is dry - it will feel dry when it is hot. The best possible solution is to get the mattress out in the sun. Unzip the cover to expose the foam to the sun, and leave it there as long as possible - ideally 8 to 10 hours.
This sounds like a LOT of work, we get it. But marine environments are already susceptible to mould just because of their nature, and if you don't take immediate steps to dry out your mattress you can significantly shorten its lifespan.
Oh, and did we mention we sell waterproof mattress protectors? Give us a call, and we'll get you set up with one. It's a lot faster to wash a protector than it is to dry out a mattress!