Woman Ends up Vacuuming Entire Home After Making a Grave Mistake With Memory Foam Mattress

Everything has a dark side, even mattresses. On an unfortunate day, fitness enthusiast Britt Perk (@brittperk) unzipped her Casper memory foam mattress cover to deep clean her bedding and she ended up having to deep clean her entire house. Perk was unaware that the foam of the mattress was covered in tiny fire-resistant filaments of fiberglass. As the mattress was unzipped, these glitter-like strands of glass leaked out of the foamy material and dispersed throughout her house, posing a dire threat to her family’s health. “Do not remove the cover of your memory foam mattress,” she urged her followers in a TikTok video.

“I had no idea that my mattress could possibly contain such a toxic and awful substance. I was just trying to do a deep clean of my bed and ended up having to do a deep clean of my entire house,” Perk described in the video caption. As the camera panned through her house, it displayed all the stuff packed in large poly bags and cluttered everywhere along with hose pipes and cleaning stuff. “Now we are dealing with a major contamination issue,” she wrote in the video overlay.

She revealed that once the fiberglass particles had spilled out of the mattress, she had to get her entire house cleaned by professionals. They even had to buy a new vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter to do the enormous vacuuming job. Everything that couldn’t be vacuumed, washed, or wiped had to be discarded. It took endless vacuum sessions to scrub and clean the carpets. She realized that the mattress in her kids’ room was also leaking fiberglass. In fact, one shard of fiberglass got into her eye causing a red spot in her eyeball. She went insane as she realized that companies that dealt with fiberglass contamination were charging up to $50,000 for deep cleaning.

And so, a lack of awareness about fiberglass cost her thousands of dollars. “This was honestly one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in a while,” Perk confessed. She added, that even though her house is healthy enough to move back into, she still needs to get the ductwork cleaned. “I’m going to be vacuuming every day for months because I’m completely paranoid,” she said. In the comments section, hysteria washed over people who, like Perk, were unaware of the hazardous glittery material hidden in their mattresses.

@blackroses.1111, who experienced similar fiberglass contamination in 2020, said, “It’s real. I washed and dried my entire house and everything in it covered. Making dinner and the air was sparkling. It’s not a joke.” Others pointed out that this can only happen in America. “In Mexico and in Canada we have laws to prevent this,” noted @nerdsseething. Although many were shocked, “fiberglass contamination” is not something new. In early 2023, a Maryland woman, Iesha Myers (@ithinkthatseesh), also posted a TikTok describing how she found fiberglass particles all over her washing machine, clothing, and even in the air of her home after she washed her mattress topper. 

As for Perk's situation, she revealed in a follow-up video that the mattress company, Casper, no longer uses fiberglass to insulate the mattresses. However, the three mattresses she bought from the company in 2017 had a firesock of fiberglass. After learning about the situation, Casper sent her three new mattresses and other bedding equipment. Good that Perk caught the situation before it was too late because experts say that fiberglass contamination has horrific consequences. 

The CEO of Innerbody Research, Eric Rodriguez, told Sleepopolis that fiberglass is extremely dangerous when someone is exposed to it directly. “Fiberglass inside a mattress is okay if it stays in,” he said, “but if it gets out, it can wreak havoc on your house and your health.” He added that once the fiberglass is released, it can be impossible to get rid of without a professional. Once it settles in every nook and corner of a house, it poses the risk of rashes, blisters, asthma, skin problems and even cancer to the home dwellers. 

You can follow Britt Perk (@brittperk) on TikTok for more homemaking tips!