Putting Mattress Tags To Rest

It's Monday again, like it or not. Today's topic was suggested late last night by a friend of mine who wants to know why she cannot remove the tags on her mattress because they say that doing so is a violation of the law. No, I'm not kidding. She really wants to know.

We've all heard the jokes on network t.v. over the years and the idea of illegally removing mattress tags has become a benchmark for obedience to the law (even Seinfeld mused why those tags were there and it was illegal to remove them).

Well guess what? It's not illegal for you to remove the tags. I will repeat, it is not illegal for you to remove the tags. As the consumer and buyer, the mattress police are not coming to your house to check whether you have left the tags on.

It is, however, illegal for the seller of your mattress to remove the tags. Here's why. If you look at all the fine print on the tags, you will note that it includes a description of what the mattress is made of. Early on in the twentieth century, the mattress industry was pretty unregulated and mattresses were made from a pretty wide variety of materials. Laws were eventually enacted to regulate the content of mattresses and a lot of retailers didn't like this because some of the stuff they were using was dangerous and flammable but cheap. To prevent a larger problem of fraud, laws were later enacted requiring the disclosure of a mattress' contents and the placement of a label indicating what the mattress was made of. This would allow consumers to avoid mattresses with dangerous materials or things they were allergic to. These tags also carried a warning that they were not to be removed.

So, the warning label does not apply to you, the end user. You are free to ditch the tag. Cut away. The law in this instance was meant to protect you, not prevent you from getting that bottom sheet to fit right.

Have a good week everyone.