What are dust mites?
Dust Mites are tiny creatures that are nearly invisible to
the naked human eye. The ones that are linked predominantly with asthma are
commonly called House Dust Mites, since they are found in house dust. There are
about 13 different types of Mites which have been found in house dust, of which
6 types are found around the world. Two types of Mites are found in North
America. They belong to the group called Dermatophagoides.
Dust Mites are blind, eight-legged bugs that are related to
spiders and ticks, measuring about 1/100th of an inch in length. They
are so small that six of them will fit on the end of a pin.
The numbers of Dust Mites seem to peak in July and August,
and allergens remain at high levels through December.
ORGANISMS FOUND IN HOUSE
DUST OR PRODUCING HOUSEHOLD DUST:
House Dust Mites, Silverfish,
Cockroaches, Itch Mites, Corrociedtia, Pet hair skin and scales, human hair skin
and fibers, food crumbs etc. Make up what can be found in a single gram of
household dust.
Mite dust, when stirred up stays in the air for two hours.
What they eat and how
they live.
Unlike some types of Mites, the House Dust Mites are not
parasites of living plants, animals or humans. The main foods of these bugs are
dead skin cells like dander that are regularly shed by humans and animals.
Other things that they eat are fungi that grow on the skin, molds, insect bodies
or parts (i.e. carpet beetles, silverfish, moth and butterfly scales, and
cockroaches), pollen grains, bacteria, skin scales of birds, and dead plant
matter.
The Dust Mites leave droppings everywhere they go. Their
feces have enzymes leftover from what they used to consume and digest their
food. These enzymes are the main part of what causes asthma and other allergic
diseases. Many people tend to blame pollen or animal dander for their asthma
and allergy problems, when, in truth, Dust Mites and their droppings are the
main cause of asthma worldwide. The symptoms are usually repiratory, not a
rash, though there have been reports of a red rash around the neck.
Unfortunately there is no cure for Dust Mite allergies, only prevention.
A Dust Mite thrives in warm and humid conditions, and their
favorite spot to live is in mattresses, pillows and bedding where you leave
behind dead skin cells and body fluids you excrete when you are sleeping. More
Mites are found in bedrooms in general than in any other room in the house.
Dust Mites are so tiny that your mattress may contain as many as two million of
theses little scavengers at a time. If you choose to vacuum the mattress, know
that they can hang on quite well to avoid being sucked into the vacuum, but
vacuuming will still remove some of the dust on which the Mites feed and a
little of their droppings.
Dust Mites also live in dust that accumulates in places
like carpets, upholstery and other textiles in homes. They burrow into the
materials to escape the light, and the fibrous and cellular structure of these
materials, allow them to cluster and reduce water loss. And carpeted floors
harbor a great deal more Mites than tile or wood floors. The type of pile that
the carpets have, also make a difference. The short, tight-piled carpets have
fewer Mites than the long loose-piled carpets which actually seem to provide a
microhabitat for the accumulated food and water that favors Mite survival, and
offers them protection from removal by vacuuming.
Dust Mites do not drink water, but absorb moisture from the
air and surroundings. They eat more and develop faster in higher temperatures
of 70-80 degrees F and humidity levels of 70-80%. They do not survive well at
low humidity levels, and temperatures over 140 degrees for an hour is lethal to
these mites.
How can I get rid of
Mites?
It is not simple, and not enough to get rid of the mites
alone. To improve conditions for the allergy sufferer, you must get rid of the
mites and also nearly all the dust which they may have left throughout your home
over the years. It’s a big effort and very expensive for most people, though it
can be worthwhile. But be aware that no matter what you do to your home, you
still breathe in Mite dust in other places than home. Also, do not make the
treatment worse than the disease. Some people get obsessive about cleaning, and
cripple themselves socially in an effort to avoid Mites. There is no single
remedy for getting rid of Dust Mites, and Mite control will not work for you
if you are not allergic to Mites. If you mean it though, be thorough.
Using allergen barriers and a consistant washing routine in
combination though, can lower the number of Dust Mites found in a bedroom
considerably.
Here are several suggestions of steps that you can take
that will help reduce the effects of the Mites and limit their numbers.
• Encase box springs, bedding and pillows in an
impermeable rubber or vinyl plastic, or in zippered dust-proof bedding covers.
They also need to be permeable to water vapor so sweat will not accumulate next
to the skin, and should enclose the mattress, pillow(s) and comforters
completely. Although research has shown that versions which didn’t cover the
bottom of the mattress completely worked just as well. Clean the bedding covers
regularly according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Using non-allergenic
comforters and pillows won’t work as a substitute to covering them with the
special dust-proof covers. All non-allergenic means is that the pillows are
synthetic.
• It is also important to launder all uncovered
items regularly. Wash your sheets, blankets and pillow(s) every week in very
hot water of about 130 degrees F. This has been proven to kill all Mites. Be
aware that temperatures over 120 degrees F can burn children if they turn on the
hot water by themselves. Washing in cold water removes about 90% of the Mites,
and dry cleaning kills all Mites and effectively removes dust from bedding
items. Heat can also be applied by other means such as superheated steam
cleaning of carpets, tumble-drying laundry, exposing to direct sunlight, or dry
heating with electric blankets. A study has shown that using an electric
blanket for eight hours a day reduced the dust mites in mattresses by ½ in a
month.
• Wash clothes more often than you normally
would. It is possible that clothes, including sweaters and dressing gowns are a
prominent source of Mite dust.
• Control and suppress other insect pests such as
cockroaches, fleas, and silverfish to minimize the extra allergens in the house.
• Keep the humidity below 70%.
• Have good ventilation. Consider heat
exchangers to keep your house warm but ventilated.
• Minimize air infiltration which allows pollen,
another major source of allergen for many people and food for Dust Mites, to
enter.
• Regularly vacuum the carpets, furniture,
textiles and furnishings like draperies to keep Dust Mite populations reduced.
• Avoid wet-mopping which increases air moisture,
or if you must wet mop, it is a good idea to vacuum thoroughly first.
• Don’t give furry stuffed animals to children to
take to bed. A better choice is to give them a little cotton blanket which can
be washed regularly in hot water of about 130 degrees F to get rid of the Mites.
• Replace cloth-upholstered furniture with
dust-proof furniture such as wood, plastic or leather furniture. It may be more
expensive, but you may be fighting a lost cause without doing so.
• Replace your carpets with sanded and/or
varnished floorboards, or a vinyl linoleum, or tiled floor. When someone walks
over a carpet, Mite dust is put into the air and takes about two hours to
settle. Use a few throw rugs instead and wash them several times per year.
If you live in an area where getting rid of the
rugs is not possible, then a few options that you can use are: have a great
vacuum cleaner, do what you can to reduce the humidity, cover the areas of the
rug that are walked on the most with rugs you can take out and wash and give
replacing the carpet frequently a higher priority and consider getting a
cheaper, lesser quality type of carpet rather than an expensive one so it’s more
affordable to do.
• Damp dust with a slightly damp cloth rather
than vacuum to keep the dust from flying about.
• If your Asthma is really bad, consider moving
to another area where your asthma may be much milder, or moving to a newer house
which has great damp-proofing.
• When traveling, take dust-proof bedding covers
with you and use them on spare beds in other people’s homes or on hotel beds.
Then wash the covers when you get home.
• Sleeping bags that are rarely used can be dry
cleaned immediately when you get home and then promptly stored in an air tight
plastic bag.
• The allergic person should not be the one doing
the vacuuming or be around while the vacuuming is being done. Almost all vacuum
cleaners, even the ones with good filters take and disperse a surprising amount
of Mite dust into the air from the surfaces they are “cleaning”. There are some
vacuums that work better than others, but if you as the allergic person have to
do the vacuuming and bed-making, wear a good filter mask, even though it might
be uncomfortable and not very convenient.
• Special air filters that can help decrease the
Mite dust in the air.
And there is some research going on that involves the
effects of vapors from wintergreen and 56 other plant oils such as anise, birch,
coriander, lemon grass, nutmeg, pine, spearmint and ylang-ylang that kill Dust
Mites in clothing, or in near proximity to their vapors. But in particular,
Wintergreen is the most effective killing Dust Mites not only in small areas
like storage boxes, but also in larger areas like closets. But the clinical
usefulness and safety of these oils isn’t clear yet. |
