Worried About Having a Bad Duct Cleaning Experience?Information About Home Dust Mites and Allergy Problems
Dust Mites and Allergies in the Birmingham-Hoover Areas of AL
Dust mites can be found in your air ducts, linens, and carpeting, and cause cause or aggravate allergy problems. To the tiny dust mite, your household dust is home. The mites feed on the particles of hair, food, and skin that litter your home as dust. The home dust mite, dermatophagoides farinae, is called HDM by most allergy specialists. Dust mites can cause serious respiratory problems, particularly asthma. An interesting other fact about dust mites is that as larva they have 6 legs and when they are adults they have 8. A male dust mite generally lives for 19-30 days. Female dust mites live twice as long and lay eggs for the last 30 days.
One concern people don't have to have about dust mites is that they do not bite. Generally dust mites live on the dust formed on shed human skin cells. Usually dust mites have plenty to eat since people shed around 0.3 to 0.45 Kg (0.5 to 1 lbs) of skin each year. The moisture from you sleeping, sweating, and breathing on your sheets and bedding, make your bed an ideal place for dust mites to live. If you have any allergies, you should know that dust mites are a huge source of allergens and can cause or make worse conjunctivitis, rhinitis, dermatitis, and asthma. The dust mites harm your body through the enzyme DerP1 that causes allergies and is in the mite's droppings.
Despite all the dust in your air duct system, mites usually choose to live in more humid places. Air ducts do carry a lot of skin, and other dust particles though. Air duct systems also use fans to circulate air all over your home. This is dangerous because it helps the mites thrive and causes you to breath in more of their fecal mater than you normally would.
Here are a number of great ways to reduce and control dust mite growth:
- Replace your standard vacuum with a HEPA filtered one.
- Make sure you dust and wipe down surfaces after use and on a regular basis.
- Do not forget to get your carpets, drapes, upholstery, and air ducts professionally cleaned.
- If you replace your carpets with vinyl or wood you will reduce dust mies and cleaning required.
- Switch to buying allergen proof bedding products.
- Overnight freezing is a great way to kill dust mites without the use of sanitizers.
- If you can keep the general humidity below 70%, possibly with your HVAC system, then that will take care of most of the mites.
Although there is no be-all-end-all dust mite solution, the above tips will make a big difference.
Well, that concludes our dust mites article. Hopefully you have a better understanding of what the technique involves and what you might search for in an air duct cleaning company. Since most duct cleaning companies also clean dryer vents, you might want to read our dryer vent cleaning tips article as well. Having your dryer vent cleaned while the technicians are still at your home cleaning your air ducts, will save you money.
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