Worried About Having a Bad Duct Cleaning Experience?Could Home Dust Mites be Causing Your Allergies?
Dust Mites and Allergies in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy Areas of MA
Everyone should know about tiny dust mites that live in your air ducts, carpets, and many other places, and can cause allergy symptoms. Invisible to the naked eye, dust mites live in and feed off of dust in your home. The dust in your home is made up of tiny particles of hair, food, and skin that the dust mites live in and feed on. The official species name of home dust mites (HDM) is dermatophagoides farinae. They are well know to be a common cause of asthma. The 6 legged dust mite larva turn into 8 legged adult dust mites. Male dust mites have a 19-30 day lifespan. The females, who live twice as long as males, are the ones who lay the eggs.
The only good thing about dust mites is that they do not bite. Dust mites feed on shed skin and other food particles. You might not know it, but humans shed from 0.3 to 0.45 Kg (0.5 to 1 lbs) of skin each year. Moisture lost by people while sleeping, such as sweat and saliva, makes beds and ideal places for dust mites to live. A common source of household allergens, dust mites can cause 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.
As mentioned above, dust mites like to live in very humid places, and therefore do not care for air ducts very much. Air ducts do however greatly contribute to the dust, and other particles in your air. However, these systems deposit the dust particles all over your house when they circulate air. This provides a constant source of food for the dust mites.
Below are a number of good ways to control dust mite populations:
- All carpets in your home should be vacuumed regularly, and a HEPA filtered vacuum is recommended.
- Routinely dust your house.
- Even things like drapes and upolstry should be regularly clean and sanitized.
- Reducing dust mite populations is just one of the many reasons to have your carpets replaced with vinyl or hardwood floors.
- There are sheets and pillow cases that you can buy that are anti-allergen.
- You can clean kids toys of mites without chemicals by freezing them overnight.
- Dust mites have a hard time living in a house if the humidity stays below 70%.
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 take on what the procedure involves and what you might look to in an duct cleaning company. Since most ductwork 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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