May 03 2007
take that dust allergy!
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I touched briefly on this the other day when I was talking about carpet care in your home. The most obvious treatment for allergies is to simply stay away from or avoid what you are allergic to. Sure, when that something is a food or an animal it’s easy enough. But, environmental allergies like dust and pollen are a bit more difficult. They are airborne and everywhere you go.
I already told you about the millions of dust mites lurking in your carpet. I definitely prefer having no carpet in the house, hard wood or laminate with a few scatter or throw rugs to cozy it up a little bit is the way to go if you’ve got allergies. Those darn dust mites are lurking in every corner of your home and getting rid of the carpet takes away the largest area they can reach.
Vacuum with a hepa filter and steam clean any carpets as frequently as you can. This will help keep dust and dust mites minimal. The best things about throw rugs is they are much easier to clean and wash than traditional tacked down carpeting.
Get protective covers for the mattresses in your home, probably the most commonly thought of place for dust mites to be simply be cause we physically lay down on it each night to go to sleep. We are literally dust mite food. Yuck. They feast on our dead skin cells, and they multiply like wildfire spreading across the dry ground. Pillows too of course. Get hypoallergenic pillows, and replace them at least once a year, twice a year is even better! Did you know that after a year your pillow can weigh up to a pound more than its would have new just from the number of dust mites lurking in there? Mattresses obviously can’t be replaced every year, but should be replaced approximately every 6 to 8 years, and definitely no longer than 10 years.
Wash the bedding in hot water to flush those little buggers out of there. Once a week, or at least once every other week. Synthetics can be washed less often than down materials.
Change those air filters every 3 months for the best results and spend the extra couple of bucks to get the nice thick one that filters out the pollen, dust and dander etc… It’s worth it and you’ll notice a huge difference in how much dusting you do!
Chachkee’s (sp?) go bye bye. Yup. All those knick knacks and such on the wall are dust magnets. Nix them now and save yourself a lot of extra housework and sneezing!
Static cling, in a good way. Those static charged dust cloths are awesome because they pick up the dust as opposed to just moving it around with a traditional cloth dust rag or fuzzy duster. Pick it up, toss it in the trash and move on with your day.
technorati tags: allergies, dust, pollen, allergic, sneezing, carpet, hard wood floor
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Good tips! I agree that getting rid of carpets and vacuuming often are two of the most effective ways of reducing dust to manageable levels.
If you don’t mind, I’ll add a couple more:
• Replace the filter in the central heating/cooling unit with a HEPA filter. You’ll be amazed how much this reduces dust, especially the more problematic fine dust that settles on everything. This is not possible for everyone, especially if you rent rather than own your home.
• Purchase an air purifier – a unit that circulates air in the room through a HEPA filter. This is not required if you have a HEPA filter in the furnace, but its the way to go otherwise.
I hope that helps.
Not only it is needed to clean carpets, mattress and vacuum on regular basic, but it is also necessary to clean your curtains and upholstered furniture as weel. Is it true that vacuum cleaner with special HEPA filter can retain 99,9 % of particles? I’m not sure about it as my colleages still having asthma symptoms after using vacum with or without HEPA filter.
Sherrys last blog post..Preventing Asthma Attacks – How to Remove House Dust Mites
If anyone in your family has allergies, carpet is probably the flooring that is going to be hardest to clean. Be sure always to sweep and vacuum daily so that dust does not find a home in your carpet.
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