Short-Let Damage Reports: What a Photo Inspection Should Cover After Every Guest
Written by Iva, founder of Iva Cleaning Services London. Damage in a short let is rarely dramatic. It is a…
A mattress is the one surface in the house you spend a third of your life pressed against, and the one that is almost never cleaned. It cannot go in the washing machine, it is too heavy to take outside, and a fitted sheet hides whatever is happening underneath. What is happening is predictable: sweat, skin, dust mites and their droppings, and in rented or let properties a history of stains that nobody admits to. This guide covers how often to clean a mattress, what a clean actually removes, how to do the basics yourself, and what a professional mattress clean costs and includes.
We clean mattresses as part of professional carpet cleaning in London visits for households, landlords and short-let hosts, so the numbers below are from what we see.
| Situation | Vacuum and air | Deep clean |
|---|---|---|
| Your own bed, no allergies | Every time you change the sheets | Once a year |
| Allergy or asthma sufferer | Weekly | Every 6 months |
| Children’s beds | Weekly | Every 6 months, and after any accident |
| Rented property | By the tenant | At every change of tenancy |
| Airbnb or short let | At every changeover, under the protector | Every 3 to 6 months depending on occupancy |
| Guest bed | Before and after guests | Every 2 years |
Rotate the mattress end to end every three months, and flip it if it is double-sided. A mattress protector, washed with the sheets, is the single most effective thing you can do; it keeps sweat and spills off the mattress itself, which is the difference between a wipe and a stain.
Dust mites. Microscopic, harmless in themselves, but their droppings are the most common indoor allergen and they live on the skin cells a sleeper sheds every night. A used mattress carries a significant population; the warmth and humidity of a London bedroom in a damp Victorian house suits them. Vacuuming removes the surface layer; hot-water extraction and the heat of professional cleaning reduce the population deeper in.
Sweat salts and body oils. An adult loses a measurable amount of moisture into bedding every night. Most evaporates; the salts and oils do not, and over months they form the yellowed areas you see when you strip an older mattress. They also feed mites and bacteria and are the source of the stale smell a mattress develops.
Stains. Sweat, blood, urine, drinks, make-up. Each needs a different treatment and most need it soon after it happens. An old stain can be lightened; it is rarely removed completely, which is why the protector matters.
Odour. Bacteria in the sweat and skin residue. Cleaning and thorough drying deals with it; a spray of fabric freshener masks it for a day.
Do not use a steam cleaner from the kitchen cupboard on a mattress. It puts a lot of moisture in and takes none out, and the mattress stays wet inside for days. Do not use bleach; it damages the fabric and the foam and leaves a smell. Do not soak anything.
A professional clean uses a hot-water extraction machine designed for upholstery, which sprays a cleaning solution into the fabric and immediately recovers it with powerful suction, so the mattress is damp rather than wet and dries in a few hours. The process on our visits: vacuum with a HEPA-filtered machine, pre-treat stains with the right product for each type, extract the whole surface, apply an anti-allergen or deodorising treatment where asked, and leave the mattress on its side or propped to dry. It takes about 40 minutes for a single and up to an hour for a king.
Mattress cleaning is priced per side. A single mattress is £28 plus VAT, a double is £38 and a king size is £48, for one side per visit; if both sides need doing, the second side is a second item, and in practice most mattresses only need the sleeping side. Carpet, upholstery and mattress visits have a £98 plus VAT minimum, so a mattress is usually cleaned in the same visit as a carpet or a sofa, which is how most of our customers book it. The sofa side is in how to clean a fabric sofa, and the method itself in why use steam cleaning.
The method changes slightly with the construction. Memory foam and latex absorb liquid and hold it, so they take the least water of all: a lightly damp cloth for stains, no extraction unless the machine is set to its lowest flow, and a long, warm drying time. Pocket-sprung and hybrid mattresses with a quilted top tolerate extraction well because the moisture stays in the top layer, which is where the dirt is. A mattress with a removable, washable cover (common on foam models) is simplest of all: cover off and washed at the label temperature, core vacuumed and aired. Check the label before any liquid goes near it, exactly as you would with a sofa.
A stained mattress is one of the common deductions on a tenancy deposit, and a replacement is charged at the mattress’s depreciated value, which on a decent double is still well over £100. For a tenant, a £38 clean before check-out is the cheaper outcome. For a landlord, a clean at every change of tenancy, recorded on the inventory with a photograph, is what makes the next claim stick if the next tenant leaves it stained.
For short lets the arithmetic is about reviews rather than deposits. Guests lift the sheet when something smells. A protector on every bed, checked at every changeover, and a deep clean every few months keeps the mattress out of the review.
Cleaning will not fix sagging, springs you can feel, or a mattress older than about eight to ten years. Mould inside the padding (a musty smell that cleaning does not shift, or spots on the underside) means replacement. So does a urine stain that has gone through to the core and been there for months. For everything else, a clean is a fraction of the cost of a new mattress and makes a real difference to how the bed smells and how an allergy sufferer sleeps.
Mattress due a clean? Book online, add it to a carpet or sofa visit, and we confirm within one working hour.
