Allergens in your home are a threat to your family’s safety and health. Common indoor allergens include dust mites, house dust, pollen, fabrics, and furry pet dander. When you’re regularly exposed to those you’ll develop nasty symptoms caused by inflammation of your nasal passages. You’ll experience runny nose. You’ll be wheezing like crazy. You’ll cough and feel facial pressure and pain. So how do you battle these pesky allergens then? What can you do to reduce dust mites in your home? Keep your household healthy and your rooms dust free. Here are the top 5 ways to reduce allergens inside your home:
Keep your linens clean to reduce dust mites
No matter how much we spend time cleaning and filtering the air inside our house, it’s an impossible task to keep a place totally free from dust mites. But don’t worry, you can avoid them and significantly reduce their numbers by keeping your linens clean. Allergen-proof bed covers are a good way to prevent dust mites from colonizing your bed. Washing your beddings weekly is also important. All sheets, blankets, and pillow covers must be washed in hot water of at least 54.4C to effectively kill dust mites and eliminate allergens. If your kids like to keep stuffed toys with them, make sure they’re washed regularly as well. And moving forward, try to get the washable kinds.
Keep the temperature and humidity in check
Generally, by maintaining a relative humidity of 50% and below, you discourage allergens from settling in your home. As for the temperature, keep your house cool at 20-22C using an air conditioner. Hot and humid houses are a playground for dust mites and mold. A dehumidifier does the job of regulating the humidity in your area. And if you’d like to measure the humidity levels in your home, you can get a hygrometer in most hardware stores.
Do a weekly cleaning routine
Maintaining cleanliness inside the house is a hard habit to build. But if you’re really concerned about your family’s health, you’ll do whatever you can to keep them away from sickness causing germs and allergens. In cleaning your house, make sure that you clean the floor with a damp mop. If your have a carpet, a vacuum cleaner with HEPA or small-particle filters are effective in sucking out dirt from the floor and keeping them trapped in the dirtbag. The floor, carpet, and furniture tend to accumulate a lot of dust, and vacuuming them regularly ensures that dust is kept away from surfaces.
Check your air ventilation
If you have an air conditioning system, use HEPA filters to reduce the amount of dust circulating in your home. A well ventilated house becomes your first line of defense against harmful outside elements. When it’s pollen season, make it a point to keep your windows shut specially during times when pollen counts are highest, that’s between 10am to 3pm.
Declutter your home
Decluttering is a challenge every household face. Just how many items can we confidently run our fingers on without dirtying ourselves? The truth is, we keep a lot of unnecessary things. Declutter your home and decide on an organization system. Audit your personal belongings and label them into 3 categories: to throw, to keep, to donate or sell. Minimizing the amount of things in your home makes it more breathable and helps decrease the production of dust coming from old stuff like linen and paper.
