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Comment by Reedx | Hacker News Reader

“In California, a lot of charities can’t accept a used mattress,”

So those in need of mattresses don't get them and more likely to go to landfill... regardless of condition.

Are used mattresses really that risky? Are charities themselves not able to make a reasonable judgement call on what they accept?

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It's risky for the charity. For instance, if the mattress has bedbugs, it stands a good chance of contaminating everything they've got in storage, requiring them to purge their entire inventory, sanitize, and build up from scratch again.

Off topic somewhat but there was a news story of a library that lost a ton of books because someone return a book infested with bed bug eggs. Went on the shelf and spread throughout the library.

Can't they set up an offsite hotbox to get rid of the bedbugs before it gets onsite? Surely someone could set up a mobile truck that can come, park, and heat up 15 mattresses for the few hours it takes to kill or drive off the bedbugs, no?

Is setting this up worthwhile for a general charity? Would it be better for them than say, working out an overstock donation?

Do you really thing a charity can afford that? And mattress companies have exactly zero incentive to fund this.

> Can't they set up an offsite hotbox to get rid of the bedbugs before it gets onsite? I am not sure if you are serious or not, maybe you think charities have huge amounts of money to throw at all problems like Google does?

One simple option is to immediately insert the mattress into a bed bug cover upon pickup.

Bug covers for mattresses need to be of the right type and installed properly. Doing it upon pick up only increases the risk of damaging the cover and ruining any utility it has. They're not designed for durability and it takes only a pinhole puncture to ruin the entire cover.

If perfection is the concern, don't forget that bed bugs can hitch a ride on anything from an infected house, from books to nightstands.

Can you ensure that this process is followed fully and correctly all of the time?

Wouldn't this apply to any bedding, or even clothing?

Depends. Clothing you can wash. In my state, outdoor outfitters aren't allowed to sell used sleeping bags because of hygiene concerns.

David Sedaris has told a story about catching crabs from thrift store pants.

Buddy of mine tried telling his wife the same story, but she didn't buy it.

I would assume the issue is partly that there aren't many organizations capable of dealing with it. You need to operate a warehouse for the mattresses, and have some sort of local storefront presence like Goodwill so people can donate and pick them up somewhere.

I've noticed this is very jurisdictional.

I recently needed to get rid of a mattress set, and looked online. There are dozens of pages claiming that $Charity_X won't take mattresses, and dozens more claiming it will.

That's the problem with the internet - it's sometimes not specific enough. Due to local laws, the charity in question doesn't take mattresses. Fortunately, in mine it does as long as there are no stains and they're in pretty good shape. It gets the mattresses fumigated and uses them in its homeless shelters and battered women's shelters.

Edit: I suspect the charities that won't take mattresses are ones that run primarily on resale revenue, and not those that run their own housing.

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