Bedding

The mattress tag police, whose job it is to keep tabs on the ubiquitous "Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law" tags attached to furniture and bedding, do not carry weapons, other than a pen and a fistful of violation notices. But these state inspectors from the Bureau of Home Furnishings do have police powers and are expected to have law enforcement backgrounds. When they find a product in a shop or factory that has no tag--or one that they suspect contains materials different from those listed on the tag--they confiscate a sample and ship it to their home office in an industrial park on the outskirts of Sacramento.

Judy Deaton has never forgotten the sage words of her former interior design instructor: "When you go to visit a client's house, always ask to see the bedroom. That will show his true personality." Rooms that will be seen by neighbors and friends may be decorated to impress other people, he said, but one decorates a bedroom only to please oneself.

It's enough to keep you awake at night. That favorite pillow of yours--field of your dreams, launching pad of snores--is also fertile breeding ground for mold, mildew, fungus and dust mites. In short, all the things that can kick allergies into overdrive. But before you go pillowless, or sleepless, consider this: The nation's $5.

(Starting today, The Times begins a weekly column on small business. It will appear Fridays in the Business section.) Andrea Totten's son, Cameron, was so much a part of his mother's quilt-making business that he learned his colors by sorting fabric squares. One day, the toddler pointed up to a cloudy sky. "He said, Mommy, look at the polyester up there!" recalls Totten. It was then that she realized that her business and her life had merged.

Ortho Mattress Inc., the nation's largest factory-direct bedding merchant, filed for federal protection from its creditors Wednesday, the third Southern California furniture retailer to falter in the past month. Ortho, which operates more than 80 showrooms in the Western United States, said it would continue operating as usual while undergoing a restructuring that is expected to result in the closing of nearly half its outlets during the next year.

The rich and famous are different from you and me. They sleep on sheets we could only dream of. Unfettered by the annoying concept of shopping around, they stop in at Pratesi Linens Beverly Hills and drop as much as $3,000 for a king-size sheet, woven in Italy of the finest Egyptian cotton, of course. (To be fair, a twin fitted sheet is a mere $260).

What treasure would you save if a natural disaster strikes? The key to a lifetime of sound sleep, says one Atlanta attorney. "If there's a fire, what am I going in there for? I've thought about that," says Asim Raza. "Kids and wife. And then -- my pillow. If you're 35 and you've been sleeping on the same pillow for 31 years, you don't take that lightly." This isn't a joke to Raza, or to the many other adults who are deeply attached to the cushions that lull them to sleep each night.