Allergy flare-ups and nasal irritation are common amongst all of us who struggle to keep dust out of the house. When allergy season hits, you feel like you have no control over your symptoms. Your mind is telling you pollen and dust are closing in with no escape, which creates the perfect habitat for dust mites.
These microscopic critters measure in at one-hundredth of an inch, feeding off dead skin, animal hair, and pollen particles. Truthfully, they are everywhere in your carpet, furniture, pillows, and curtains. One gram of dead skin cells can feed thousands of dust mites.
It is statistically impossible to eliminate every dust mite from your home, but there are a few ways you can wipe out a large portion of these pests to reduce allergy symptoms. Here are five solutions to help get rid of dust mites:
- Lower Room Temperature
- Reduce Humidity
- Vacuum Often
- Replace Filters
- Schedule Steam Cleaning
Dust mites themselves are not harmful, nor do they bite people. Unlike other insects that feed on blood or use humans as hosts, dust mites cause residual problems associated with allergies and asthma. Following these steps will improve the overall air quality in your home and help curtail symptoms.
1. Lower Room Temperature
Over the years, as human civilization has advanced and modernized, so has the habitat of the dust mite. They have adapted to living indoors and are naturally attracted to the warmth and coziness of a home. The ideal environment for dust mites would be a hot summer day.
An effective and simple solution is turning down the temperature on your thermostat. Keeping the air cooler will not be as inviting to dust mites and ultimately act as a deterrent for new ones wanting to come inside.
We mentioned their size earlier, so trying to seal cracks in windows and doors will not work very well. At one-hundredth of an inch, there is not much you can do to fortify your home from dust mites completely. The slightest opening is enough for these minuscule bugs to enter.
2. Reduce Humidity
Along with warmer temperatures, dust mites are also attracted to humid environments. Moisture accumulating on carpet and upholstery creates an optimal dwelling for dust mites to store their larvae and hatch future generations of creatures into your home.
Placing a dehumidifier in larger carpeted rooms around the house is a good strategy to combat this. These machines can lower the humidity in a short period and lessen the chances of experiencing allergy symptoms.
3. Vacuum Often
It may seem obvious but cleaning your house more frequently and vacuuming the carpet is a great way to get rid of dust mites. Every time you vacuum a carpet, you are essentially removing hundreds of thousands of dust mites from the carpet fibers. Repeating this process will keep dust mites from freely laying more larvae eggs without any resistance.
A few characteristics to look for in a vacuum are a machine with powerful suction, easy maneuverability, and a handheld hose. This will allow you to vacuum every corner of your home, which inevitably houses dust mites already.
4. Replace Filters
Equipping your home with the best vacuums, humidifiers, air purifiers, and air conditioning units is an excellent system built to eradicate dust mites. However, maintaining those machines and replacing their filters is just as important.
Thousands of dust mites are removed from your carpet, but they still live inside the filters and dust compartments of those devices. Emptying the dust chamber and replacing the filters often should be part of a weekly routine if you want to see the best results.
5. Schedule Steam Cleaning
Sometimes for the most successful outcome, you need to call a professional, and for removing dust mites, that means seeking professional carpet cleaning services. Experienced carpet cleaning technicians understand the consequences of having dust mites in your home.
Regular vacuuming and air purifiers are acceptable methods of maintaining dust-free carpets, but every few months, you should schedule a steam clean. Steam cleaning penetrates deeper into the carpet fibers with a specialized combination of water, heat, and cleaning solutions to extract the dust mites.
This type of treatment is specifically designed to leave your carpets smelling fresh and clear your home of dust mite colonies. Steam cleaning will improve your home’s air quality and give your sinuses relief!