Heteka
is a Finnish brand name for a steel-framed bed with springs. The name comes from the company founded by, which started producing Heteka beds in 1932. Production of Heteka beds has been discontinued, but contrary to popular belief the name "Heteka" still remains a registered trademark. Before the Winter War there were six factories in Finland producing double couchette beds of iron, of which Helsingin Teräshuonekalutehdas fared the best.
A Heteka bed consists of two beds inside each other, of which the inner one can be pulled out from under the outer one. The beds have a steel pipe frame and a metal lattice bottom, and the inner bed usually has small wheels. The bottom of the inner bed is lifted up at nighttime, producing another bed. At daytime the bottom is put back down and the bed with its linens is pushed back inside the outer bed. Covered in bedcovers, the Heteka bed now becomes a couch to sit on, without a back rest or arm rests.
Heteka was advertised as repelling bed bugs, because bed bugs and other pests which thrived in old wooden beds could not nestle in beds made of a steel frame.
Heteka enjoyed great success from the 1930s to the 1950s. A total of two million beds were produced before Helsingin Teräshuonekalutehdas was discontinued in 1964, and nearly every Finnish home had a Heteka bed. In smaller homes, which lacked a separate bedroom, a Heteka bed usually functioned as a couch at daytime and was spread out to form a double bed in the evening.
At first Heteka beds used a spiral spring bottom made of small-twisted steel wire, which was as silent as the advertisements promised. The legs of the outer bed were also silenced with rubber feet. Later, apparently for cost reasons during wartime, the bottom was changed to a sparse wire lattice, which creaked noisily especially in older beds. Continual sleeping caused the lattice bottom to become warped and lose its shape. Back doctors were critical of worn-out Heteka beds and advised patients to fix them with plywood plates. Some models even lost the rubber feet, causing the legs to scratch the floor. During wartime even the steel frame was sometimes replaced with a wooden one.