The warning about removing the tags from a mattress or pillow is not for innocent consumers like you; rather, it is for pillow and mattress sellers only. There is a common myth among people that pillow and mattress tags should not be removed. Some people even claim that the police may raid your house, and if you are found guilty of snipping off those annoying tags, you may be behind bars. You don’t have to worry about it anymore because those warnings and rules are not even for you.
The American Code we are talking about here is Title 15 – Commerce and Trade, Chapter II, Subchapter 5 – Textile Fiber Products Identification, the section is 70c – Removal of the stamp, tag, label, or alternative identification Statute (a) Removal or mutilation after shipment in commerce. In this post, you will learn why is it illegal to rip tags off pillows.
Why is it illegal to rip tags off pillows?
In this section, we will discuss why is it illegal to rip tags off pillows. Tearing tags off pillows and mattresses became a crime in the early 20th century when the United States government responded to the concerns that a variety of materials stuffed in pillows and mattresses simply conducted sickness and gave shelter to the pests like lice. Some manufacturers would just fill their products with nearly anything which could be harmful, for example, horsehair or corn husks. They did it because they knew that their clients couldn’t see what is inside the product. The pillow and pad manufacturers were required to define the contents of their merchandise clearly. It also helped to identify whether those contents are entirely new or recycled substances. The tagging mandated by the law turned out to be very useful for the end customers. And this was important as recycled materials may still contain lice, bedbugs, or things like that. Information like this allowed potential buyers to make buying decisions wisely. To ensure no manufacturer or seller removed these tags, there was a message written on these tags, “Don’t remove under penalty of law.” Though “except by the customer,” was also written there but not a lot of customers bothered to read all the tag lines there.
The myth that it is illegal to remove the tags from the products got passed on through word of mouth and then popular media channels. Both, the movie “PeeWee’s Big Journey” and an episode of “President and Friends” featured characters who were punished for tearing away these labels. Before these warnings, words, “except by consumer” were introduced to the labels then. Fred, a character on a popular Nineteen Seventies show known as Sanford and Son, removed a warning label, tore it up, and exclaimed, “power to the people!” Johnny Bravo gets hunted by the police in a helicopter for doing it with a label, and saying it to himself, “Pfft, what are they going to do?” Even the company making similar products, named Serta, who was aware that taking off tags was not illegal for the consumers, created a commercial related to this. In its ad, a well-known throwing sheep were put behind bars for tearing off of the label once the bed’s owner explicitly said she didn’t want them any longer. SpongeBob SquarePants requested Squidward to hide him from the police and the law because he panics about taking off a tag slip from his bed mattress.
