Dallas / Fort Worth Local News

by Bennett Cunningham
DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ― Mattress fires kill nearly 400 people every year. And all it takes to start a raging mattress fire is a smoldering cigarette or an unattended candle. That's why starting on July 1, the federal government started requiring new mattresses to comply with stronger fire standards. But when the CBS 11 Investigators went undercover, we discovered dangerous mattresses are getting dumped on the market, and consumers would never know it.

To get close to a mattress fire, you need protection such as firefighting clothing, a mask, breathing apparatus and lots of other firefighters ready to help. Because once a mattress catches fire, it can spread within minutes and temperatures can reach more than 1000 degrees.

The problem for the consumer starts inside some local mattress stores. We went undercover at more than a dozen, looking for mattresses that may not comply with the new law. In order to comply, a mattress must contain a special fire barrier material and it must have a tag with the manufacturer's name, address, manufacture date and a prototype number which indicates it has passed at least three burn tests.

At a flea market in Grand Prairie, CBS 11 found dozens of bunk beds -- intended for kids -- on sale, without a tag showing they've been fire tested.

When asked by our undercover producer, the vendor said, "none of them, none of them have tags."

At another vendor, the salesperson told us, "We have a guy who makes them." when asked who that person was, she said, "A guy, he sells the mattresses." She told us she didn't know his name.

A mattress industry expert who asked us to protect his identity says the practice of selling mattresses that are not fire safe is "unscrupulous and unfair." He said, "not only they are endangering the public, but in some cases the public is buying a mattress they think is fire retardant when it is not."

Shopping at a furniture store in south Dallas, it took just minutes to find mattresses without the required tags. We bought a queen size mattress with no manufacture date or prototype number, which would indicate it had been fire tested. The saleswoman told us it was brand new. We loaded it up our new mattress and drove it back to our station, where our mattress expert opened it up to tell us what's inside.

The expert said, "I don't see any fire barrier here. There's no fire barrier and the fabric has not been treated, either."

The mattress is made locally by a company called Mattress World. Located in Dallas, they deliver dozens of mattresses every day to local stores. The owner said this mattress was probably manufactured before the law took effect July 1st, and the date should have been on the mattress - but it wasn't.

The owner, Kenny Esner, told us, "Anything we had before July first is overstock and we are allowed to sell."

And he's right. The Consumer Product Safety Commission allows manufacturers and retail stores to get rid of their old mattresses made before July 1st.

Our mattress expert says there's virtually no enforcement of the new law and that "(the CPSC) can't possibly cover all the bases and some manufacturers are simply not complying."

The CPSC tells us it hasn't written a single citation or fined a single manufacturer anywhere in the United States.

Our expert says consumers should be sure to check for the proper tags with the manufacturer's name, address, manufacture date and a prototype number which indicates it has passed at least three burn tests. And remember to ask questions about fire-safe material before buying a new mattress.

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