Sleeping With Monsters: Getting Rid Of Dust Mites

Dust mites are not creatures that appear only in youth hostiles and boarding houses. They are at this very moment living and dining comfortably IN YOUR BEDROOM AND IN YOUR CHILD'S BEDROOM. You can SEE a mosquito, a cockroach or a bedbug so that's a reasonably fair fight. Since dust mites can't be seen by the naked eye, they are definite favorites in this battle. You are losing!

Your bedroom is swarming with hundreds of thousands of them! Microscopic, eight-legged, spiderlike, sightless dust mites, so ugly that you would jump back if you saw them under the microscope. These microscopic critters feast and grow fat by munching on your cast-off dead skin cells.

But there is no true symbiosis here because while these little buggers survive on your yummy cells, they, in return, irritate and damage your respiratory system! HUMANS ARE SUPER SENSITIVE TO PROTEINS LEFT BEHIND IN THE MITES' FECES. Are you disgusted yet?

Mite-poop damage to your breathing is cumulative. The destruction increases gradually until you have respiratory problems that cannot be repaired. There are asthma medications that may ease your symptoms but they cannot (as yet) repair the pulmonary damage done by these scavengers.

You spend about one third of your time sleeping. Your breathing is less guarded while you sleep. You shed most of your skin cells in the bedroom. The resulting damage is not "if." It is "when." Watch a child having a severe asthma attack and you know that none of us can afford to play "out of sight, out of mind."

In ancient times when the life expectancy of a human being was less than half a century, cumulative damage wasn't that threatening. Your ancestors were more likely to be felled by severe diarrhea, typhoid, amebic dysentery, a flu epidemic or tuberculosis. Several of my ancestors unfortunately died by falling off their horses. There is no written record as to a possible quantity of whiskey involved. But I digress. These days you will live enough blessed decades for the mite-poop to have a very long time to mess with your quality of life.

Your mattress, box springs, and pillows are prized territory for mites since they thrive in dusty, dark, humid, warm places. The jury is still out about the value of special mite-proof bedding to protect you from exposure but there is much you can do before making that relatively expensive purchase.

A perfect bedroom is bright, cool, and dry. A perfect bedroom is free of upholstered furniture and ALL clutter. A perfect bedroom has a floor that can be wet-mopped. Perfect bedroom drapes should be of washable material or they should be replaced with blinds or shutters.

Speaking of battles, try convincing a teen-age kid that he or she would love this healthy new space! You will need to summon every scrap of creativity and diplomacy to come up with a new improved room that won't bring on a month of pouting. Don't give up. You are fighting for their future.

Dust at least once a week using cloths that actually collect the dust rather than wafting it from place to place.

Vacuum once or twice a week using a sweeper with a HEPA filter. These machines are a bit more expensive but remember that while you can empty your sweeper bag, some of what you inhale stays forever in your lungs, If you cannot replace your carpet with something you can wet-mop, then steam clean it as often as you can afford.

Wash all bedding (including pillows) in very HOT water often. WARM WATER DOES NOT KILL DUST MITES.

Unfortunately your pets shed more skin cells than you do so if adorable Fido or Fifi shares your bed, you have created a five-star hotel for your dust-mite guests. Bathe your pet more often than you would like or let him/her sleep in the family room.

Sweet dreams!