Costco memory foam mattress

Well, I took back the Costco 12" memory foam mattress. It just would not stop smelling. Gotta love Costco, though. They gave me back my $700 no questions asked, nearly 9 months after the purchase.

I went to Foam Creations on Solano Ave in Albany, CA and bought a $1500 combo of 6" of latext foam and 3" of memory foam they say does not offgas. Well, I am allergic to that, it seems, and have ended up sleeping on the couch to get a good night's sleep. I was told by the Foam Creations people that a) they do not allow returns, and b) they have eight customers who have returned Costco mattresses due to smell and are very happy now with Foam Creations mattresses. I went into the store to discuss this after waiting a couple of months for the foam to offgas. The owner promised me it will really finally stop smelling (now he is admitting there is a smell in their products) but that it should not take too long. I have explained to him that I have an immunodefieciency and cannot be exposed to toxics for a whole night and do well with that, so I am surprised he sold me the combination latex and visco-elastic foam. My understanding is that latex is natural rubber and has no offgassing whatsoever. But the memory foam does have some. He had explained that Costco has its foam manufactured in China and Sleep Inovations who imports the mattresses for Costco were not overseeing the curing properly and so the product smells. He explained that his products, however, are made in California and comply with higher standards and therefore do not smell. Well, this has turned out not to be true. I wake up stuffy and feeling quite poorly when on that mattress. I have left the windows and doors open all night to help keep air moving and fresh, but especially if I sleep on my face, I seem to have an increased allergic reaction and am also annoyed by the smell.

I am conducting various tests to see what I can change, such as sleep location, trying an air purifier, etc. In the meantime I am stuck with a non-returnable Cal king size $1500 mattress that smells at least as much as the $700 Costco mattress and frankly is not as comfortable.

Prius update

Well, four months later.... I have heard nothing from Toyota of Berkeley. I am going to phone the Toyota Customer Experience line next. I have contacted Channel 4 KPIX TV in the Oakland area about this, and corresponded with the consumer advice people. They claim to have contacted a different Toyota dealership and been told about the "goodwill" situation (that if folks are not bringing in their cars for regular service at the expensive dealership shop they do not get treated very well in gray area situations like this) and that the MFD is out of warranty and that therefore I should have to pay full price for repair. I find the inconsistency over this particular failure and repair to be annoying and to not speak well of Toyota. I believe they should simply issue a recall or a blanket policy to replace malfunctioning multi-display units. If anyone has specific phone numbers and even names of contacts to call about this, I would appreciate it if you were to email me.

Bob