Rid Your Home of Dust Mites
Dust mites can be a big problem in your home, acting as allergy triggers for allergy sufferers everywhere. If you’ve ever found yourself sneezing, with itchy watery eyes or other symptoms outside of allergy season, dust mites are the likely cause.
Dust mites are found in homes across the United States, but are often hard to get rid of because of their microscopic size. These insects are essentially invisible to the naked eye and love to feed on dead and shedding skin cells from your body, the bodies of your family members, and your pets. While they are somewhat harmless in the way that they don’t bite you like an infestation of bed bugs would, they still trigger allergy symptoms and can make your home, well, not as clean as you would like.
With pets, you may have an even bigger problem, because dust mites travel on your pets. The pesky mites travel from outside to inside and all around your home, courtesy of your pets.
Dust mites adore feeding on shedding dead skin cells, which mean you’ll find most of them comfortably hiding where you spend the most time – on bedding and mattresses, couches, chairs, pillows, rugs, and carpets. While dust mites don’t necessarily mean your home is truly dirty, they are still a pest you don’t want to have.
Are Dust Mites At Home in Your Home?
As mentioned, if you are having allergy symptoms out of season, you may have dust mites. But the only real way to tell is with a dust mite kit. These easy to use kits require you to collect a sample with your vacuum for testing to determine the degree of infestation in your home.
How to Rid Your Home of Dust Mites
Dust Mites thrive in warm humid areas, like your home. Any temperature above 70 degrees offering 70 percent humidity level is best for dust mites’ survival. Right way, you can see that colder or warmer temperatures naturally defend against dust mites. Of course this means, washing infested items in hot water weekly will kill your dust mites. For items which aren’t washable, putting them (bedding, furniture covers, etc.) into your dryer for 20 minutes on high will also do away with the pests. Obviously you can’t wash or dry your sofa, but putting your sofa outside on a cold clear day will also kill the dust mites within. Vacuuming will help, but won’t rid your home entirely of dust mites. When vacuuming, you’ll want to get in the cracks and crevices as well as underneath where dust mites like to hide. If you feel your dust mites are out of control in your home, you may need commercial pesticides or professional cleaning to get rid of the problem.
How to Prevent Dust Mites in Your Home
Keeping your home clean – including carpets, rugs, bedding, and upholstery – will reduce the number of dust mites. Doing away with clutter and keeping your home dust free is also a helpful way to prevent dust mites. In addition, regularly washing pillow cases, sheets, and other bedding will help. Using HEPA filter in your HVAC system and in your vacuum, along with adding an air filter unit to your home can effectively rid your home of dust, dead skin cells, dander, and dust mites.
If you feel like dust mites have become a problem in your home, and you need help, call on the team at Signature Maids for professional home cleaning services to help rid your home of dust mites and reduce allergy symptoms for all who live there.
