What’s Hiding in Your Dust Bunnies?
Here’s a 5-word horror story: your dust bunnies are alive.
No, they won’t hop around your home or roll around on their own like a tumbleweed in an Old West movie, but dust bunnies are more than just an unsightly and unclean space. These small clumps of dust hiding in your home gather more than the gray, fuzzy mess that meets the eye.
One of the most common, and unfortunately disgusting, culprits hiding in your dust are dust mites. These microscopic insects feed on dead human skin cells and tend to thrive in hot and humid climates. Dust mites cause havoc on allergies and can make asthma and allergy symptoms worse.
Pollen that’s tracked indoors also clings to dust bunnies. Anyone who has allergies that are triggered by pollen or dust in general, will benefit from cleaning up dust bunnies. Dust bunnies are full of pollen and dust that hide in your home and prey on your allergic rhinitis making you sniffle and sneeze more.
Pet dander is another big culprit when it comes to what dust and dust bunnies can do to your health. Pet dander is dried skin cells from pets that float in the air, settling and clinging to surfaces as well as dust bunnies that form in your space. You might be thinking: I don’t have a pet so I don’t have to worry about dander, but you could be wrong.
A pet’s dander can exist for months even after a pet has left a home. If you’ve moved into a new home recently or an apartment complex that allows animals you could be dealing with these same issues even if you don’t have a pet. Even if you’re lucky and somehow don’t have any trace of pet dander in your home, human skin cells and hair can attach to dust bunnies just like pet skin cells and hair can. It’s a gross fact of life, but one that can impact your ability to breathe well in your home.
Bacteria is yet another component that makes up dust bunnies. This kind of airborne bacteria that can settle in dust can also cause bacterial infections. Cleaning your indoor air with an air purifier that filters out this infectious bacteria while also cleaning any dust and clumps of dust bunnies that appear in your home, is crucial.
So What?
Now you have all of this information you might be thinking, so what? What does this mean for you and your health? How do you go about ridding your home of these dastardly bunnies?
The bad news is that dust bunnies can be dangerous and cause respiratory issues, bacterial infections, allergic reactions, and worsen asthma symptoms.
The good news is there are several easy things you can do to clean up dust bunnies in your home. And a lot of the approaches overlap, so if you follow Oransi’s guide to getting rid of dust bunnies you can limit the number of dust mites, bacteria, pollen, skin cells, hair, and pet dander in your home.
There are multiple things to try to get rid of dust mites in your home. Doing these suggestions regularly will help get rid of dust mites and the other things hiding in your dust bunnies. Updating your carpets to hardwood helps minimize dust bunnies including the mites that feed off carpet fibers. Washing your bedding frequently or covering your mattress and pillows with allergen covers will keep dust bunnies from sticking and causing issues while you sleep.
Vacuuming regularly will successfully remove dust bunnies and everything hiding inside them. It’s a good idea to wear a mask while vacuuming if you’re allergic to dust or anything in dust bunnies because cleaning will kick these particles up into the air. When dusting surfaces use a soft or damp cloth so the dust is picked up by the cloth instead of thrown into the air with a dry cloth.
Running an air purifier with a high efficiency air filter and strong motor will help, just look at all that dust collected in our Oransi mod filter and not your lungs! But, an air purifier will not eliminate dust bunnies gathering and dust settling on surfaces, it will filter out a good amount of airborne dust. Think of your air purifier as an assistant that lends a hand in keeping your house clean, and more.
Taking these precautions and setting up a regular cleaning schedule will keep dust bunnies in check. Although you can’t completely eliminate dust bunnies from your life, you can take these steps so your house isn’t overrun by them and you can breathe more easily.
