Worried About Having a Bad Duct Cleaning Experience?Is Your Home Infested with Allergy Causing Dust Mites?
Dust Mites and Allergies in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario Areas of CA
Many people do not fully understand how dust mites could be living in their air ducts, carpet, and bed, or the way they complicate allergies. Microscopic dust mites live in and feed on the dust in your house. There is a lot of hair, food, skin, and other particles in the dust of your hose that dust mites feed off of. While the home dust mite's true name is dermatophagoides farinae, allergists often refer to them as HDM. 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. Male dust mites have a 19-30 day lifespan. The egg laying females live for up to 60 days.
One thing that you do not have to worry about dust mites is that they will not bite or sting you. Dust mites eat the dust from discarded human skin cells. The average person sheds about 0.3-0.45 kg of skin annually which is enough food to feed close to a million dust mites. Dust mites are commonly found living in people's beds because they like the moisture (perspiration and saliva) from people sleeping there. Asthma, rhinitis, conjunctivitis, and dermatitis can all be caused by dust mites. The microscopic feces that dust mites leave all over your house and floating in the air contains DerP1, an enzyme that causes allergies.
The dust mites usually live in the most humid parts of your house, which is not generally the air duct system. Often air ducts are the biggest source of skin, hair, and fecal matter particles in your air. Another thing air duct systems do is circulate air around your home. This provides a constant source of food for the dust mites.
Dust mites can be warded against by taking the following precautions:
- All carpets in your home should be vacuumed regularly, and a HEPA filtered vacuum is recommended.
- Routinely dust your house.
- Clean and sanitize bedding, upholstery, drapes, and linens regularly.
- Replacing carpeting with wood or vinyl flooring is a good idea.
- Replace all of your pillow cases with special allergen proof cases.
- You can freeze your kids stuffed animals.
- The mites cannot thrive if humidity is under 70% in your home.
Now that you know a lot more about dust mites, you will be better able to prevent them from affecting your health.
Well, that concludes our dust mites article. Hopefully you have a better grasp of what the procedure involves and what you might search for in an ductwork 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 already at your home cleaning your air ducts, will save you money.
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