Today Larry is working on removing the latex strips that we glued to the slats on our wood bed frame about ten years ago.
It sounded like a good idea at the time: latex strips just on the slats, which would give extra cushioning and still allow the natural wool mattress to breathe. I don’t like the odor of latex, so I didn’t want a whole mattress.
I did have to endure the outgassing of the latex for some weeks, but then it was tolerable and comfortable.
But about a year or two ago I started noticing a lot of dust and bits of latex under the bed. The latex was disintegrating!
This has gotten to be such a problem that Larry has taken the entire bed apart this morning and is pulling the latex strips off the slats. It is creating so much dust he had to bring in the shop vac because our little household Miele couldn’t handle the amount of dust that is being created.
I don’t know if this is a problem for pillows and mattresses, but it is a problem for our two-inch square strips. They just dried out. Maybe they were dehydrated by six months of air conditioning. I don’t know. I just know that it became such a mess we had to remove them.
I have had a wool mattress for a number of years. I purchased it from Shepherd’s Dream, and also ordered the wood frame with latex foam slats on which the mattress rested. They offered the option of encasing the latex strips in organic cotton, rather than leaving them exposed. I declined having the strips covered, so it sounds like I will soon have the same problem you have with disintegrating latex foam.
What a guy, that Larry! 🙂
Well, at least the latex dust is completely toxic-free. Right?
According to foamorder.com, “High-density natural foam rubber—almost 6 lb/ft3—will last up to 30 years when properly encased”. http://www.foamorder.com/foam/organic-cushions.html
I assume your latex strips were not encased.
I like modular bed materials. That means everything can be cleaned, maintained and replaced independently as needed.
Yes they were not encased. And what is “properly encased?” I’m still searching for the answer to that question…