What’s Hiding in Your House Dust?

Do you know what’s lurking inside that dusty lampshade, behind those radiators, or above your doors and curtain poles? If you took a small sample of the dust up there and put it under a microscope you would scare yourself. You certainly have unwanted house guests somewhere, no matter how thorough you are with cleaning.

HOUSEDUST MITES

House dust may contain a number of different potential allergens that cause anything from itchy skin, runny eyes and sneezing to asthma and other allergic reactions. The most common unwelcome house guests are dust mites that live in the dust. They thrive in the mixture of fibres from different kinds of fabric, cotton, lint, and bits of feathers and other furniture stuffing material. They have an ample supply of food and bedding, including cat and dog dander, bacteria, mould, bits of plants and insects, especially fragments of cockroach shells and other tasty morsels. All of this is readily available in house dust.

The mites lay eggs and you scatter them over carpets, soft furnishings, curtains, rugs, and everywhere else when you try to wipe them away with a dry cloth. They even stick to your clothing and skin, or even worse, you breath them in.

HOUSEDUST MITES: LAVA

These unwanted guests are not easy to get rid of. Use a damp cloth where you can so that you don’t just move the dust around, and send it into the air to settle elsewhere. The problem is that you have to do this every day to get rid of your lodgers, and even then, you are bound to miss some.