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Exposure to dust mites in the first year of life can trigger a lifelong allergy. There is no cure, only prevention…
Recently lunaeclips5 wrote an extremely good article on childhood asthma, if you haven’t read it please do and by clicking on the
blue link, oh…but read this first hey!! Anyway, after reading it myself I began to think about the things that trigger my asthma off, one in particular being dust mites. Besides pollen, these horrible little buggers are one of the main causes for asthma and they do not discriminate socially or racially – another words,
everyone is prone to have them.
Dust mites can not been seen by the naked eye and measure to approximately 1-100th of an inch in length. These miniscule little bugs which live in your home love warm, humid and dusty areas such as beds, pillows, bed covers, mattresses and carpets and believe it or not, they are more closely related to the spider and tick family. They feed off of particles or flakes shed from the hairs and skin of humans and even animals and are the most common cause of many allergies, especially in asthma. It is the mites own skin and faeces (or cr@p) which causes allergic reactions in people. These include itchy nose and eyes or asthma. As mites mature they shed and leave their remains for us to breathe in (Boyd 2006).
Sound horrid? Well, it is…
That’s why I have a little ritual that I do approximately every 6 months or so, one I adopted after a seeing a demonstration for a particular vacuum cleaner. Simply I just vacuum my lounge suite and beds. Each time I do this I am constantly amazed with the amount dust that I collect and if you look at the pictures on the right hand side of the screen, you’ll see what I managed to collect today from a portion of my lounge suite and recliner. This maybe something you already do however there are many who don’t and a lot more who have never considered this being a part of their cleaning rituals or have even thought of doing it.
I used a little bit of cloth on the head of my vacuum so I could illustrate exactly how bad it can get. Admittedly I have been renovating as well, so its a little worst this time but if I hadn’t have vacuumed my lounge suite, it would have made the perfect breeding ground for dust mites…they would have loved it! Areas prone to infestation include furniture that contains fibrous material and where people spend the majority of time in or on such as, bed mattresses, pillows carpets and lounge suites. Dust mites are also hitchhikers and use people and pets as a form of transportation from one room to another.
You may not see these mites but I can guarantee they are there, ready and waiting. Dust mites do the majority of their attacking during the night (Michael Russel). This is mainly because of them living in your mattresses and pillows etc...or ‘dust traps’ and many homes have enough of these blighters to be considered dangerous for asthmatics.
How to get rid of dust mites
Using chemicals is to eliminate dust mites is not efficient or necessary and does not have any real lasting effect on anything but your hip pocket (Boyd 2006). The best solution is:
Dusting and vacuuming
Using mattress and pillow protectors on your beds.
Bagless vacuums are ideal to use as they do not emit allergens back into the home like many bag-styles do
Steam cleaning where possible is also effective as mites need a dry environment to live and the moisture from the steam cleaner helps kill them
Wash pillows, sheets and blankets at least every 2 -3 weeks in very hot water
And for fabrics that can not be washed in hot water try freezing it up to and between 24 – 48 hours, if you can that is.
Facts and some gross but true
Exposure to the mites in the first, crucial year of life can trigger a lifelong allergy. There is no cure, only prevention
A typical mattress can have up to tens of thousands of dust mites.
Nearly 100,000 mites can live in one square yard of carpet.
A single dust mite produces about 20 waste droppings each day, each containing a protein to which many people are allergic.
A typical used mattress can have anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million mites inside.
10% percent of the weight of a two year old pillow can be made up of dead mites and their droppings.
Mites prefer warm, moist surroundings such as the inside of a mattress when someone is on it.
Humans shed about 1/5 ounce of dander (dead skin) each week.
About 80 percent of the material seen floating in a sunbeam is actually skin flakes.
Have a go at vacuuming your lounge and pace a little cloth like I have did the end of the hose, just so you can see what actually comes out of your lounge chairs. Go along the fabric, checking at different intervals to see what areas are worst. Do the same to beds, you may just be surprised with at what you find…
These methods will not get rid of dust mites completely but they will help reduce dust mite infestation from serious levels….
Good Luck
(February 2007) (
