Reducing Dust Mites in Your Home

A Guide to Reducing Dust Mites in Your Home

Dust mites are tiny bugs that live in many people’s homes. What you may not realize is that dust mite allergies are very common. Your body may have a negative reaction to the feces that dust mites leave behind.

The dust mites are so small that you will probably never see them without the help of a microscope, but they can cause all sorts of discomfort and harm just the same. Their presence can cause your body to swell, your skin to be irritated, and your sinus passages to be blocked. They like to hide out in dust, as you might expect from their name, but they could be anywhere in your home and not just the dusty places. However, getting rid of dust is a great way to get rid of them. We are going to share some methods you can employ for removing dust mites from your home.

Dust and Clean Often

The best thing to do to eliminate or just cut down on dust mites is to clean your home frequently and in great detail. If you just do a quick cleaning that isn’t very thorough, then you won’t be getting rid of the dust mites very well. If you clean with precision and thoroughness, then your home can be nearly dust mite free.

You could benefit from comprehensive cleaning for apartments and houses to really get rid of the mites. By having a professional service do the cleaning, you can be sure that your home will get really clean, and you will cut down on the dust mites in a big way without having to interact with them or their feces. In fact, if you have very sensitive allergies, then it may be best to have someone else do the cleaning, especially for something detailed like a deep clean that would wreck your sinuses.

It is so important to clean your home and then keep it clean if you want to reduce the dust mite presence. When you dust in your home, be sure to use methods that don’t simply move dust from one place to another. Instead, use a wet cloth to collect dust as you clean.

Use Hypoallergenic Bedding

The kind of bedding you use will save you some work and keep you healthier when it comes to dealing with dust mites. Hypoallergenic bedding items are specially designed to repel pests like mites and keep them from hanging out on your bed. Use hypoallergenic sheets, blankets, mattress covers, and pillowcases to prevent dust mites from leaving feces in a sensitive area of your home.

You will likely discover that this is a great investment because it helps you to sleep better at night and prevents you from having to clean your sheets as often. You won’t feel your sinuses clog up as much when you sleep, so you can get better, more refreshing sleep and wake up feeling energized.

Air Out Your Home

Fresh air can help to keep dust mites out of your space as well. If you air out the house regularly, then dust mites won’t get as comfortable. You can do this by simply opening doors and windows every so often, allowing fresh air to circulate and old, stale air to leave. This will get rid of some of the dust mite feces in your home as well.

To speed up the process of refreshing the air in your home, when you open windows, you can turn on fans in as many rooms as possible. Aim your fans toward the windows. This will push out that old air fast and make dust mites feel like leaving.

This is also a great way to get rid of other allergens and irritants in the house, like pollen, dust, and more. Be sure to refresh your home regularly and bring in clean air every so often.

Use the Vacuum

One of the most powerful tools you have for getting rid of dust mites and their droppings is the vacuum cleaner. Dust mite feces can stick on the carpet fibers and be tough to remove through any other means. So, vacuum your carpets regularly, and then vacuum in other parts of the home as well. This eliminates a lot of dust mites, their dander, and their feces, which can all cause allergic reactions.

Of course, vacuuming is a great way to get rid of dust too, which is made partially from the human skin cells that dust mites feed on. The more people you have living in your home, the more often you need to vacuum. People create dust when the skin cells fall off and pile up, and we each shed thousands of skin cells each day.

That’s a lot of vacuuming to do if you are going to cut off the dust mites’ food supply.

If you have a severe dust allergy, then you will want to be careful about vacuuming. The dust it kicks up into the air can be harmful for you as well, so wear a face mask when vacuuming. You can also open doors and windows to allow in fresh air and take frequent breaks so that the dustiness of the job does not overwhelm you.

Get Rid of Carpets

There are a lot of other ways you can keep dust mites away and make it harder for them to find a comfortable place to stay in your home, but we want to leave you with one more effective tip. That is, to remove as much of the carpet in your home as possible.

Carpet is simply too attractive to dust mites for you to keep around if you have a severe dust mite allergy. If you can eliminate some or all of the carpet in your home, then that will make a difference. You would be wise to remove all carpet in your bedroom, since that is where you want to have clear nasal passages more than in any other room.

By doing these things, dust mites won’t feel very at home in your house, and you can cut down on their presence in a big way.