Undercover Work : Regulation: Mattress inspectors are serious about that tag that says ‘Do not remove under penalty of law.’

At first blush, the 20 rebuilt mattresses looked new as they were wheeled out of the bulky sterilizing oven at Cousin Jack’s Mattress Co.

Then Joann Johnson, one of a handful of state inspectors who monitor the furniture industry, ordered a worker to cut one open.

Peering inside, Johnson discovered a dirty old mattress that had not been renovated at all. Cousin Jack’s had simply sewn a fresh cover over the beat-up bedding, which may well have been lying on a street corner a week earlier.

“This is a no-no. You can’t do this,� declared the state Bureau of Home Furnishings employee, who proceeded to temporarily withhold 60 rebuilts from sale.

Caught red-handed, the longtime operator of the Santa Fe Springs factory agreed at once to rip off the old covers. But James Haske Jr. insisted that there was nothing wrong with the practice. “With the sterilization,� he said, “I figured that killed any living organism.�

Such is the world of the rebuilt mattress, a burgeoning but low-profile industry light-years removed from the environment of luxury sleep shops.

Across Los Angeles County, 50 low-budget factories churn out anywhere from 10 to 500 rebuilts daily.

The mattresses, normally stripped to the springs and repaired, are marketed at dozens of retail discount furniture stores and thrift shops, primarily in low-income neighborhoods.

For new immigrants or impoverished families--who are believed to account for the bulk of the purchases--a spanking-fresh rebuilt set may seem a real bargain at $60 retail. Considering the alternative--new mattresses generally cost upward of $500--it frequently is.

But all too often, manufacturers cut corners to make up for low profit margins, state officials say. And rarely are they caught or prosecuted, the officials add.

“In many instances, they don’t sterilize them. And then they will merely put a brand-new cover over the existing mattress. The cover will be very badly stained with urine, blood and goodness knows what else,� said Gordon H. Damant, chief of the state home furnishings bureau. “(But) it’s the kind of situation that unless someone becomes suspicious of something, there’s no way to check.�

The problem, added Damant, is “Who looks inside? You have to destroy it basically to look inside of it.�

As a result, complaints are rare.

Yet, state lab test records in Sacramento show that Los Angeles rebuilt bedding manufacturers have repeatedly violated state codes requiring the sterilization of rebuilt mattresses.

Although Damant’s agency is responsible for monitoring rebuilts, the second-hand mattress industry is a low-priority matter for a bureau with only five inspectors statewide to police 24,000 furniture and bedding retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers.

The agency, which also is responsible for keeping tabs on manufacturer claims and on the flammability standards for all furniture and bedding, is cautious about imposing penalties, which can include statewide product sales bans or fines of $2,500 per offense.

“Generally,� Damant said in a recent interview, “we will give (businesses) the benefit of the doubt.

“The tragedy of the situation is, the people being harmed and defrauded are the people who are always the low-income groups,� Damant acknowledged. “They are the people who can least afford to have that type of a product problem but they are subjected to it.�

Mattresses may be the most personal of furnishings--the average person spends roughly one-third of his life on one. But the skeletons for rebuilts are gathered in the most impersonal of ways.

“We buy from motels, apartment houses, colleges,� and in smaller lots of ones and twos “that come in from the street,� said Don Franco of the giant Gateway Mattress Co. in Montebello. “We go out and we will purchase any old mattresses and box springs and hide-a-bed sleepers that we can possibly get our hands on.�

In many Los Angeles County communities, officials said, most discarded mattresses left outside on trash day are hauled off in scavengers’ pickups hours before the rubbish truck arrives.

Franco describes typical mattress scavengers, who earn from $3 to $7 for each unit, as “rummies . . . who do it so they have enough to eat for a couple of days. . . . (They are) basically trash peddlers who scavenge aluminum cans or cardboard if not mattresses.�

Franco is the king of rebuilts, the largest manufacturer of his kind in the state, and probably the nation. Each day, 500 mattresses are renovated and sterilized at his Montebello factory, located in a grimy industrial area across the street from a gasoline distribution terminal.

At the heart of Franco’s business are “cores�--used mattresses that serve as the frames for the rebuilt product.

Behind his plant, more than 20,000 cores are stacked 20 to 30 high, exposed to the elements. The cores, which come in myriad sizes, colors and floral patterns, sit like silage for months before being forklifted into the plant.

To rebuild a mattress, Gateway workers cut off the old cover and check for and repair broken coils.

They then add cotton padding and a smolder-resistant layer of foam and sew on a new cover--along with a red “Do Not Remove� tag to identify the material inside as second-hand.

The finished product is baked in a sterilizing oven for two hours at a temperature that reaches 205 degrees. State codes also mandate that formaldehyde, a substance on the state list of cancer-causing chemicals, be pumped into the oven to ensure that any contaminants are eliminated.

“If you look at that bed, you don’t know it’s a rebuilt, and that’s the whole idea,� said Franco. “Make it firm. Make it attractive. Make it eye-appealing and keep the cost down. The tighter the economy gets, the better the product sells.�

Franco admits that “at one point, rebuilders had the reputation of fly-by-night operations.� But he contends that rebuilt mattresses are generally a good buy, particularly when one considers the lack of quality in inexpensive new mattresses.

Moreover, manufacturers point out, rebuilts serve a public purpose by catering to people who cannot afford expensive new products and by recycling bulky items that would otherwise be dumped in rapidly filling landfills.

But there are serious problems as well.

Some retailers have been known to misrepresent the used mattresses as new by tearing off the red “second-hand materials� tags that must be affixed to rebuilts, officials say. Moreover, it is difficult to tell the quality of an individual mattress because the quality of the cores and the extent of rebuilding, if any, can vary so much.

There also is the question of sanitary standards.

Damant said the bureau is concerned about the carcinogenic properties of the sanitizing agent formaldehyde, but says no adequate substitute has been agreed upon.

And although there have been no illnesses directly attributed to inadequately sterilized rebuilt mattresses, the state’s Damant says health officials believe “the potential is there for the spread of disease.�

Even Gateway, regarded by state officials as one of the cleanest rebuilt operations in California, has been repeatedly accused of inadequate sterilization of rebuilt mattresses. Bureau records inspected by The Times show that in seven of the last 10 years, Gateway rebuilts tested in the state lab have failed to meet sterilization standards.

In one case last December, tests showed that a Gateway rebuilt was adequately sterilized, but inside the fresh-looking mattress inspectors found a used mattress cover.

“No question about it, we make mistakes,� said Franco. “Human elements, human error.�

Officials of two other large-scale Los Angeles rebuilders acknowledged in recent interviews that they regularly sew new covers over old mattresses, sterilize them and send them to market. Both said they were totally unaware of the requirement that dirty covers be removed.

At Cousin Jack’s, which manufactures about 100 rebuilts daily, Haske agreed that the average consumer might be unpleasantly surprised to learn of the practice. But the 10-year company co-owner contended that until inspector Johnson’s recent visit--accompanied by a Times reporter and photographer--he was never informed that old, stained covers must be removed.

Nicholas Panza, president of Goodwill Industries of Southern California, said Goodwill stores regularly sell rebuilts that have old mattress covers inside. But like Haske, he said he was unaware of any prohibitions. “As long as we put a new cover on it and sterilize it.�

Damant, however, insisted that the state codes are clear: All rebuilt mattresses must be sterilized and dirty covers must be replaced.

“The law is very specific,� the bureau chief said. “It says if you have a filthy or soiled cover that the mattress cover must be cleaned or replaced. . . . In order to take the mattress cover off and clean it, you’d have to destroy the cover.�

However, when it comes to disciplining rebuilt mattress makers, the bureau has adopted a cautious approach.

As bureau chief, Damant is responsible for meting out penalties. In dozens of furniture flammability cases, the 27-year bureau employee has issued statewide product sales bans or weighty fines.

Damant, however, cannot remember the bureau pursuing such actions against a second-hand mattress manufacturer in recent years.

The closest the state has come, he said, was against Laneek Mattress Inc., a Pomona rebuilt factory, which he determined was sewing new mattress covers over old mattresses. Damant learned of the problem last spring as a result of a complaint from a Bakersfield resident who unexpectedly found out what was inside his mattress when the stitching came undone.

Damant said that Laneek went out of business before he could file charges. But he has requested that retail stores that sold Laneek products provide substitutes to its customers.

As it stands, the bureau’s investigative resources are stretched to the limit.

Some of Los Angeles County’s 25 to 50 rebuilt mattress factories go several years without inspections. Before Johnson showed up this month at Cousin Jack’s, for example, the factory was last visited in January, 1988.

“You can do maybe the tip of the iceberg,� Damant said. “You’re basically spot-checking whatever you’re looking at.�

The state lab examines 10 to 30 mattresses a month, about 10% of the total furniture products it tests. Even then, there is a long backlog.

When a reporter visited the lab in late August, technicians were examining a rebuilt from Castro Mattress in Lynwood that had been shipped to Sacramento in May. Inside the new cover was a dirty, old mattress. Whether it was ever sterilized will never be known. Any traces of formaldehyde would be long gone in three months, according to Damant.

When lab tests determine that rebuilts have not been sterilized, Damant’s customary practice is to write a letter to the factory requesting that it shape up its equipment and procedures. “Sometimes they are not even aware they have a problem until they get a negative result from us,� he says.

His role, he says, is to seek compliance, not to close down businesses.

“By and large, most of the people in the second-hand business are very small and even if you take them to the district attorney’s office, so what?,� Damant asked. “What are you going to accomplish?