How to Get Urine Out of Mattress

It’s especially important to keep your mattress clean at all times because a dirty mattress is an invitation to various bacteria and mildew spores.

It might not be one of the most pleasant things to talk about but accidents happen and mattresses get dirty, especially when there are younger kids and pets in your house. Urine stains can be a pain in the neck to clean, especially if they have been there a while.

Many people just don’t know how to do that correctly and simply wipe the stains out using a sponge and some water. Unfortunately, that won’t remove urine from your mattress completely and the unpleasant smell will remain there as well.

That’s not a disaster and in fact, it’s not always necessary to take your mattress to the dry-cleaner. In many cases, you can remove both the stains and unpleasant odors with the means at your disposal.

How to Prevent Your Mattress from Getting Dirty

With modern technology, washing your bedding is extremely easy. You simply take it off your bed, put it in a washing machine, and the deed is done. A dirty mattress, however, is an issue that’s a lot more challenging. Thankfully, it’s also an issue you can prevent.

One of the easiest ways to prevent unpleasant accidents is to buy a water-repellant mattress protector. There are three main types of mattress protectors: fully encasing, fitted, and strapped.

fully encasing protectors look like a zippered fabric case for your mattress. They are perfect for you if you want it to firmly remain in place at all times and if you like flipping your mattress over from time to time.
fitted protectors are much like fitted bed sheets. They have an elastic rubber band sewn into them to fit your mattress snugly. They are usually cheaper than other options but don’t provide a fit as form as the zippered protectors.
strapped protectors look more like mattress pads that sit on top of your mattress and fixed on it with four elastic straps at the corners.

How to Remove Urine Stains and Odor Out of Your Mattress at Home

There can be various types of urine stains, so you must use different approaches and means depending on what kind of stains you have to deal with. For example, urine acidity is much lower in kids than adults. Animal urine can be different depending on an animal’s gender, size, breed, and other factors.

How to Remove Fresh Urine Stains and Odor

A child’s urine doesn’t contain a lot of substances (urea nitrogen, uric acid, and urochrome) that leave stains and specific odors on a mattress. This is why it’s relatively easy to get rid of this type of stain on the mattress. If it’s a fresh stain you are dealing with, use a soap solution. Note that there must be nothing but soap and water, no chemicals. It’s also important to take special care so that you don’t get the mattress too wet. Just clean the stain up with a cleaning brush dabbing it with a towel or other moisture-absorbing piece of fabric at the same time.

When it comes to an adult’s urine stains, things get more complicated, and means to get rid of stains more complex. Here are some things you might want to do:

If possible, take the mattress cover off and put it into a washing machine. Act as quickly as possible to sponge up as much moisture as you can with water-absorbing tissues or fabric. Don’t try to rub the stain too hard; this will only push urine deeper into your mattress.
Using vinegar can help to get rid of the pungent smell of urine thanks to its properties that neutralize uric acid. Dissolve some vinegar in water in the 1:3 ratio, and sprinkle the mattress with the solution using a spray bottle. If you don’t have any spray bottles at hand, just apply some solution to the mattress’s surface with a sponge but dab it with water-absorbing tissues right after that.
If you don’t have any water-absorbing tissues or towels or you don’t think they do a very good job, you can use baking soda. Sprinkle some over the stain and leave it there for 1-15 minutes. It will soak up the water and vinegar solution nicely.
Another thing you might need to remove the urine stain from a mattress is hydrogen peroxide. Dissolve 3 ounces (100 ml) of hydrogen peroxide in 6 ounces (200 ml) of water and shake the solution well. After this, apply the solution to the stained surface sprinkled with baking soda by using a spray bottle or a sponge. The ensuing chemical reaction will create a lot of thick foam. Leave it on the mattress for about 2 hours. The oxygen released during the chemical reaction will efficiently decolorize the stain.
Two hours later, dab the place where the stain was with dry tissues and vacuum it thoroughly to remove the remnants of baking soda. After this, you’ll have to leave the mattress in a well-ventilated room for no less than 10 hours so that it dries properly and to remove the smell of baking soda and vinegar.

How to Remove Old Urine Stains

Important: many people both online and offline will tell you that to remove an old urine stain from your mattress, you should use borax or chlorine-based bleach. Don’t do that. Both borax and bleach are powerful chemicals that fight stains efficiently but you will never be able to get them out of your mattress after this. And a mattress with chlorine or borax in it isn’t the best place to sleep on, especially if it’s a child’s bed we are talking about. besides, it can seriously damage the mattress’s cover. In the best-case scenario, it will get very stiff.

To get rid of some old urine stains, Sleeping Culture recommends a much safer method. For this, you’ll need some citric acid. Dissolve a teaspoon of citric acid in a cup of water and apply the solution to the stain. 1,5 – 2 hours later dab the stained place, vacuum it and leave the mattress to dry.

In most cases, the acid will remove the urine and will decolorize the stain. But just as is the case with chlorine, your mattress might not withstand the aggressive substance. In some cases, the stain can go away and take the fabric with it. If you are doubtful and don’t want to risk it, just take your mattress to the dry-cleaner.

How to Remove Urine from Mattress: FAQ

1. How do you get pee out of a memory foam mattress?

First of all, you should be very careful when using water to remove the stains. If it goes deep into the foam it can cause mildew spores to develop and grow inside it. Steam and moisture can damage the foam filler and lead to its distortion. You can’t iron it either; you’ll have to let it dry in the open air or a well-ventilated room. You can use a hairdryer to make the process faster, if necessary.

Go to your local store and ask around. There are detergents designed specifically for cleaning memory foam mattresses. If you can’t find them anywhere, try the methods listed above using hydrogen peroxide and vinegar.

2. How does vinegar clean urine out of a mattress?

White vinegar is a potent cleaning agent, thanks to its high acidity level. What’s also great about it is it’s biological and won’t harm your health like many chemicals. In many cases, it can even be too strong to clean a mattress, so you’ll need to make a vinegar-water solution.

Because of its acidity, vinegar easily destroys the chemical composition of urine and thus removes both the color and the unpleasant odor.

3. How do you get rid of the human urine smell?

It depends on what kind of urine you have to deal with. If it’s a child’s urine, use regular laundry soap to make some soap & water solution to gently cover the stain with it and blot it out with some dry napkins or absorbent fabric.
If the pee stain is old, use citric acid (lemon juice), alcohol, or vinegar diluted by water. They can effectively eliminate the unpleasant odor.

4. What kills the smell of urine?

As it was said earlier, lemon juice, vinegar, and baking soda are quite effective when it comes to neutralizing the smell of urine. You can also use ammonia, peroxide, and orange essential oil.