Here in Chicago, where the SDMB was born, the city keeps a supply of mattresses on hand in case our coal tunnels flood.
In 1992 just such a flood occurred, dumping 40 feet of water into the lower levels of some of our loop buildings and shutting down the central city. One of the coal tunnels under the Chicago River had been damaged by a piling, and while the City was deciding how to get it repaired for the least cost (the bid process takes months around here…) the tunnel collapsed and the Chicago River flooded the basements of the buildings.
Anyway, thank goodness the city had all those mattresses!! The city was able to throw them into the whirlpool above the tunnel as part of their First Response Team Good Ideas. While the mattresses did not actually plug the leak, they reassured our citizens that the City Did Something.
Please send your used mattresses to: Mayor Daley, City of Chicago, Flood Response Team, Chicago, IL. Chicago needs them more than the homeless and the Titanic.
Life, The Universe, And Everything, I think, in which it explains about the planet cited where the mattresses live and, at periodic intervals, are slaughtered, shipped out, dried out and slept upon. None of them seem to mind this and all of them are called Zem.
The guys who deleivered mine put it in there truck and hauled it away . . . to the dumpster in my complex. :smack: A-holes. Association rules specifically prohibit that sort of crap. Good thing that the CSI unit didn’t come out with a blacklight and take a DNA swab of the stains. :eek:
Nothing bad happens to discarded mattresses. They just find a nice farm for them to live on. My mother arranged that when my Wonder Woman mattress became too small when I was younger. Our dog went to the same place. I got letters from both of them and it seemed nice.
Most of them seem to be dumped in woods or on canal towpaths. It never ceases to amaze me how far from the nearest road you can find a dumped mattress. How do they get there? Do people really drive out into the sticks in the dead of night and then stagger a quarter of a mile with an old mattress on their back, purely to avoid having to go to the dump? Apparently so.
As a matter of fact, yes. The Lynda Carter mattress developed a hole that was about 12 inches deep. What can I say, I was a horny 4 year old and she was my main bitch at the time.
[Kurt Cobain]Where do mattress go when they die
They don’t go to heaven where the angels fly
Go to a lake of fire and fry
Not see them again 'til the Fourth of July[/Kurt Cobain]
When I purchased my last mattress, I had the choice of a new mattress or a restuffed mattress - an old frame with new padding and fabric. The owner of the mattress barn (I know, high class) said they were previously motel and hotel mattresses.
I chose a new mattress.
Here in my part of the world, resale shops are prohibited from selling used mattresses. If you buy a used bed, they often tell you the mattress is out by the dumpster if you want one. It is free.
I was a delivery coordinator for a furniture store last year.
Although my company specifically did not remove old mattresses, I know from my delivery guys the policy of other stores. Most stores will just collect old mattresses until they have enough in the warehouse to fill up a truck. At that point they drive out to the city dump and dump. On occasion, when a nice new mattress is picked up, a delivery boy will claim it for himself.
Mattresses used to be donated, but there are too many of them today. Any decent sized store selling mattresses would overwhelm a charity store with used mattresses. That is not even mentioning the fact that most people in today’s world would not want to knowingly sleep on a used mattress. Especially when a customer can buy a nice new mattress for “75% OFF!!!” (I’m ceaselessly amazed that people still actually believe they’ve got a good deal when a salesperson tells them something is “75% off for this week only!”)
But there are plenty of people out there who don’t even have the “75% Off!” price. It’s those people I am aiming at. I remember when I was a kid and Mom was really broke, and she finally scraped up enough cash to buy a new mattress (she’s been sleeping on a mattress on the floor - no boxspring, because it had broken). When we dragged the old one out to the trash, chunks of foam were literally falling off of it, leaving a trail of foam breadcrumbs all the way to the alley.
da dump dump