Worried About Having a Bad Duct Cleaning Experience?Home Dust Mites 101: Allergy Prevention
Dust Mites and Allergies in the Austin-Round Rock Areas of TX
Dust mites are tiny enough to live in your air ducts, carpet, and even bed, and are known to complicate allergies. Microscopic dust mites live in and feed on the dust in your house. Skin, hair, food particles, and fecal matter, all are in the dust around your home, which the dust mites feed on. Doctors usually refer to home dust mites as HDM, although their latin name is dermatophagoides farinae. Dust mites can cause serious respiratory problems, particularly asthma. Dust mite larva have 6 legs and adults have 8 legs. Each male dust mite lives for only about 19-30 days. Female dust mites live twice as long and lay eggs for the last 30 days.
Symptoms of dust mites does not include bites, as they do not directly affect your skin. Generally dust mites live on the dust formed on shed human skin cells. People lose from 0.5 to 1 lbs. Of dead skin each year, and the dust mites thrive on that in a big family. Moisture lost by people while sleeping, such as sweat and saliva, makes beds and ideal places for dust mites to live. The most common source of household allergens, dust mites can cause or aggravate asthma, rhinitis, conjunctivitis, and dermatitis. Present in all dust mite poop is the enzyme DerP1, which has been proven to be the source of many allergies.
Despite all the dust in your air duct system, mites usually choose to live in more humid places. However, the air ducts ofter are one of the best sources of dust, hair, and fecal matter. Most heating and cooling systems do circulate air all around your home. The dust mites never run out of food when they have your air duct system depositing more all over the house for them every day.
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.
- Dust surfaces daily.
- 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.
- Children's stuffed animals can be frozen to kill mites living in them.
- One of the best ways it to maintain a humidity of under 70%.
It might be impossible to keep dust mites completely out of your home, but following the suggestions in this article will go a long way.
Well, that concludes our dust mites article. Hopefully you have a better understanding of what the operation involves and what you might search for in an duct cleaning company. Since most air 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.
Local Articles Related to Austin-Round Rock Dust Mites and Allergies
Local Texas Air Duct Cleaning Companies and Government Links
