Brainstorm on uses for old mattresses and boxsprings

Mattresses.

Mattresses have to be the #1 item I notice on people's curb when bulk trash collection comes around.

What the heck can you repurpose and old mattress for?  You could build an interesting trellis from the wire mesh inside the mattress but that means the hassle of removing all the fabric.  Never done it before but seems like it would be a pain.. and then you have all that nasty synthetic fabric to deal with.

Any ideas?

Put it out in the yard and let the kids jump on it to their hearts content until it's totally ruined?!?

Other than that, I have no ideas!

Kathleen

Nekkid box springs make awesome trellis's and garden art!

I had a great plan to try some buried under the ground under my fences to keep predators from digging under.... but decided against it as I don't want to be bringing that many on to my property.

They might be a cheap fix, to use in place of deer fencing and kind of artsy if done right around a small vege garden.

Feral

is it a pain to get the cover off and stuffing out?

Dunno. When I purchased my property it had a huge pile of left overs from the previous owners. There were several nekkid pre rusted box springs in it.
Feral

stalk_of_fennel wrote:is it a pain to get the cover off and stuffing out?

Not to some varieties of house pet.

I could imagine lots of different creatures working on it, if there were food hidden inside somehow.

Discarded mattresses are often disgusting, though.

stalk_of_fennel wrote:
is it a pain to get the cover off and stuffing out?

nothing a hot fire won't take care of
don't stand downwind of the fire though lots of nasty gick in modern fabrics

Where I live I usually end up with a lot of brush that needs to be burnt in the fall or early spring. I have an old box spring that I pile the brush on as it accumulates. The air flow underneath the pile helps when I get around to burning it.

Robert Ray wrote:
Where I live I usually end up with a lot of brush that needs to be burnt in the fall or early spring. I have an old box spring that I pile the brush on as it accumulates. The air flow underneath the pile helps when I get around to burning it.

Good idea of a way to get the fire going well.

Some fella posted a comment on this board awhile back about how they got rid of brush.  I believe he was somewhere in central or south america with a high humidity, warmer climate, etc. but... he said they pile the brush up and then plant vines in the brush.  The vining plants overtake the brush pile, increasing the humidity in the pile even more, creating cover for all sorts of critters and basically causing the brush pile to rot away a lot faster.  Ultimate product would be great quality soil.

Steel mattress springs have been used in the past for reinforcing concrete when making walls or roofs for root cellars.

Some of the 1x lumber in the bottom of a box spring can be salvaged quickly and easily with no tools, just by pressing against the nailed joints. Once you've worked one free, it can be used as a prybar to remove the other easy ones.

That reinforcement use is a great idea! Spring steel is a lot stronger than re-bar.

vaccine culture?

Burn them for heat and then sell the scrap metal?
Mattresses, which most people spend an inordinate amount of time on in their life are one of the least natural, most chemical things even us natural folks come in contact with on a daily basis- that said, one soaked with years of some-one else's body fluids is even more hazardous- STAY AWAY, their trash and there is a reason they go to the dump, some things are better left alone,

hillbillyarchitect wrote:
Burn them for heat and then sell the scrap metal?
Mattresses, which most people spend an inordinate amount of time on in their life are one of the least natural, most chemical things even us natural folks come in contact with on a daily basis- that said, one soaked with years of some-one else's body fluids is even more hazardous- STAY AWAY, their trash and there is a reason they go to the dump, some things are better left alone,

i think you're being a bit alarmist.  99% of human pathogens die upon leaving the human body for even a short period... in matters of seconds.  you're not going to catch any diseases from a mattress, that's just nonsense.  but you're suggesting to burn the mattress... talk about trying to poison yourself and the environment you're burning it in.  makes no sense.

i just googled around the web a bit.  i find a lot of articles about people being afraid of getting diseases from a martress but nothing that says there's any sort of link. 

It has nothing to do with being alarmist, it is practical- they are mats woven from inorganic fibers that have accumulated years of skin and body fluids- while they may not cause disease, there is nothing healthy about them. When you have built a home from mattresses crusted with another man's semen, perhaps you can devise a use for used tampons?

I don't see where anyone has even hinted at using the material or woven material from a matress in any of their suggestions. Springs and wooden frame pieces wouldn't be a concern or point of contamination.
The burning of the matress here in Oregon can result in a pretty stiff fine if you are caught. A razor knife around the bottom stapled edge and then covering and padding peel right off.

I have broken down dozens of mattresses and box springs as part of my demolition and salvage work. A queen sized box spring takes me about 7 minutes to process. This is done so that I can avoid paying the $10 per unit oversized charge at the local transfer station. I have never sold any components but have put stuff in my free pile.

The products produced are wooden slats, wire in the form of springs and bind wire, and fluff. I have never been paid for springs at the scrap yard due to minimum tonnage requirements which I have never reached with such a light product. I put the wood in the free pile. The fluff is made of cloth, foam and sometimes felt or lint and is dumped since it is filthy and there is no market for it.

A business could be created in disposing of these things but it is soley based on what can be charged for removal. Resource value is insignificant.

I charge $10 per unit and dumpage cost on the fluff is about 50 cents. It's an occasional thing but pays well when it happens.

Best use I recall was just outside a reservation they would burn the fuzz off and drag the springs out onto the ice all tied together in a big in a big matrix.
When the ice melted they sank to the bottom just down stream of a big dam and a very popular fishing spot.
The mattress wires would snag most every lure that touched bottom.
After fishing season closed they would tow them out with a tractor and harvest all the lures to sell in the local bait shops as used lures.

Would thoroughly PO the fishermen, but I always thought it was simply making use of what nature provided.

I never actually witnessed this, but can attest to losing more than a normal amount of lures there.

The old mattress question is a very big issue here in Puerto Rico. Because of the hurricane many folks had to throw out their mattresses due to major water damage. There were great piles of them along the roadside. Later they were picked up and carted to dumping sites and there they sit. They will never dry out so trying to burn them would be a disaster. The old metal springs do come in handy. I used some to make a small goat pen, and thought it looked cool.

Having recently had to help an elderly friend deal with bedbugs in his apartment and studying their longevity between feedings, the mere idea of going anywhere near a old mattress on the curb other than to torch it with a flame thrower gives me the hebejeebees.