How to Clean Pee Off a Memory Foam Mattress

It’s been over two years since we did our video and blog post about how to clean pee out of a mattress. It has over 1 million views, and we received tons of questions, including if our technique will work to clean pee off a memory foam mattress. Yes, this works on memory foam mattresses. However, in this video, I tried another method and show more.

Mattresses are expensive, and nobody wants to risk ruining a mattress when you could clean it. Besides that, no one likes looking at a stained mattress. There’s some odd shame feeling people get. But don’t fear; you can take care of those stains!

This is why we should also consider that accidents are inevitable. If you have kids, pets, or a bedridden family member, you’re likely to encounter urine stains and an unpleasant smell on a mattress. Or maybe you just got drunk one night, like you got drunk, threw up on it, and peed the bed. And whatever reason, there’s no shame in it. So how do we eliminate these hard-to-remove “accidents” from a memory foam mattress?

For this review, we borrowed my friend Ronnie’s mattress, and her kids peed on it – so there are urine rings on it. Her husband, Fabio, is so scared about me cleaning their mattress because they spent a thousand bucks on it a year ago. He’s freaked out that I’m going to ruin it. So I reassured them that I’ve seen so many mattresses and I’d never ruined one. And I’m super confident that I can get it out. Though a little part of me worries because I don’t want to buy a thousand-dollar mattress for him, I hope I can get it out completely.

Since the first time, I’ve learned a few things, so I’ll give you more tips to make this even easier. The mattress has a cover, and there was pee on the cover, but my friend washed it. So you can’t see any, but when you peel back the cover, you can see the pee stain. And, unusually, there’s no stinky smell.

What You Need

To clean pee off a memory foam mattress, you need these 3 ingredients you probably have around the house or that are cheap to buy:

8 oz 3% Hydrogen peroxide
1 drop liquid dish soap like Dawn (any brand will do)
3 tbsp baking soda (I like to buy it in bulk, in a plastic resealable bag, or put it into a container)

Supplies

Dry Towel (optional)
Measuring cup
Spray bottle
Cleaning gloves
Fan
Vacuum cleaner or broom

Method to clean pee off a memory foam mattress

Follow the steps to say goodbye to your dirty and smelly mattress:

Step 1: Use a dry towel to get liquid up if the pee is still wet.

If it’s really bad, then spray water on it and use a dry towel to soak it up. This is like a pre-treatment. We don’t need to do that, but this is what you need.

pouring cleaning solution into the spray bottle to get pee off a memory foam mattress

Step 2: Mix 8 oz / 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide and a couple of drops of dishwashing soap in a measuring cup.

And transfer this mixture to a spray bottle. The hydrogen peroxide in this solution has antimicrobial properties, so you’re also disinfecting. You’re wondering why I didn’t include the baking soda yet.

I have learned something since the first video, and that is no matter what you do if you put the baking soda in the spray bottle, it’s going to clog so I have a new method. I don’t mix the solution. I added the baking soda to the stain and then sprayed the hydrogen peroxide.

Step 3: Spray down the urine-stained area with a generous layer of the cleaning solution.

I know some of you don’t have a spray bottle on hand. If you don’t, you can pour the mixture over the area.

Step 4: Sprinkle baking soda over the spot you sprayed on.

Baking soda is going to absorb the liquid and the odor. You can also use baking powder because it still has baking soda. But baking soda does the job well.

Combining baking soda and our hydrogen peroxide solution will form a paste. And in case there’s any excess baking soda, you must remove it because you don’t want the fan to blow off the baking soda.

2 industrial fans drying out the mattress to clean pee off a memory foam mattress

Step 5: Let the mattress dry.

You may use a fan (a box fan like this one would be better), a hair blower (for small spots), or you can put the mattress outside your house if it’s a warm, sunny day. It will help it dry faster and let our solution do its magic.

Step 6: Once dry, remove any baking powder residue

If you don’t have a vacuum at home, you can use a towel or a broom to dust off as much of the residue as you can.

drying time

It took about 3 hours to clean pee off a memory foam mattress, which was faster than I expected. Though I was a bit worried while we were treating it because I could see the stain was still there, once it dried and we vacuumed it, you couldn’t see any. There’s no trace of any of the pee.

Reaction

I showed the mattress to Ronnie, though I got a little bit hesitant because the fire sock is a bit yellow already, and the place that we treated bleached out some, so there is a line around it. And also, I reached out to Fabio, Ronnie’s husband, who was a little apprehensive about me cleaning pee off their memory foam mattress. We’re glad that both of them were happy with the results.

Mattress Care Tip

Anna and I are huge mattress protector advocates. Please ensure that you have a waterproof mattress protector on your bed if you don’t want to clean pee off a memory foam mattress again. The Coop waterproof mattress protector is our favorite. Or you may also purchase a 4-layer reusable incontinence pad from Coop if the stains are always in the same area.

Watch our Incontinence Pad Review, where we tested it with 14 cups of liquid, including about 10 of those cups of real pee, and it held perfectly. We even checked underneath the pad, and there’s no water or dampness on the mattress.

Please share with your friends if they need to get urine off their mattress! Comment below if you tried this!