By Liz Pulliam Weston
10 things you should never buy used
Sometimes the financial or safety risk outweighs the savings.
Do you really want to sleep on someone else's mattress -- or take a chance with your child?
Mattresses. Think of all the stuff you do on your mattress. Now think of sleeping in someone else's stuff. Ewwwww.
Unfortunately, you may already be spending the night with other people's mold, mites, bacteria and bodily fluids. Dishonest retailers sometimes ignore federal requirements that used mattresses be labeled as such, often covering a secondhand cot with new ticking to disguise it. If you want an all-new mattress, the Federal Trade Commission recommends looking for a tag that promises "all-new materials" and requiring that the retailer write the word "new" on the receipt.
There's also the fact that mattresses aren't meant to last forever. Even the good ones typically have a life span of just eight to 10 years, and it's hard to know for sure how old a used mattress may already be.
Exception: When "used" is really almost "unused," such as a mattress from someone's rarely visited guest room. Still, you'd really have to trust the buyer to know, and disclose, everything that's happened on that bed, which is why you're still probably better off buying new.
Consumer Reports suggests you need to spend about $900 to get a good-quality queen-size mattress set.
That works out to about 25 cents a night -- a small price to pay for cleanliness and comfort.
