How to Create a Sneeze Free Environment

If you find that you sneeze and wheeze more than you should, the problem may be in your house. Certain types of furniture and bedding are likely to make breathing more difficult. Christy Ferer from Stylewiz.com is here to show us some sneeze free items that can help us breathe easier and they are all just a click away.

Quietly lurking under our beds, inside sofas and carpet are creatures too small to see without a microscope or strong magnifying glass. Dust mites are in the arachnid family includes spiders, scorpions and ticks. Dust mites feed on dead skin that sloughs from our bodies (and probably potato chips & cookie crumbs). They live their whole lives in dark corner dust bunnies: hatching, growing, eating, defecating, mating, and laying eggs. It's their bathroom habits that make us itch and wheeze. Many people develop severe allergies to dust mite droppings. Lie on a rug where they live and you might get itchy red bumps on your skin. Breathing in dust and you may have more serious symptoms like difficulty breathing or even a severe asthma attack. While people commonly believe they are allergic to dust, it is really the dust mites that are getting them. These mites are no danger to non-allergic people because they don't bite humans or spread disease.

What you can do to eliminate dust mites in your homes

The best thing we can do to breathe easier is try to eliminate or reduce dust mites in the home. Here are some things to accomplish this:

Remove carpeting from the bedroom. If possible bedroom should have hardwood, tile or linoleum floor. These surfaces are much less of a breeding ground. If you have to have carpet try not to place the carpet on concrete, and the warm space in between is a good place for mites to live. If you have wall to wall carpeting you can treat it with something called tannic acid, a compound found in oak bark, coffee, cocoa and tea. You will need to treat rugs and upholstery furniture every 2 months. Check with your doctor to make sure it is safe for your family.
Since most dust mites live in mattresses, put an airtight plastic cover on every mattress, wash your sheets and blankets once a week in very hot water and also put a plastic cover between your pillows and pillow cases.
Vacuum all rugs and upholstery every week. Plastic or wooden furniture also helps keeps the number of mites down. Furniture that has a polyurethane cover over its padding helps.
Because dust mites love warm humid places, keep the humidity low in your house which may mean running the air conditioner.
Keep all animals out of the rooms you use most.
Air filters, particularly HEPA filters can effectively remove many allergens but if they function improperly they can backfire.
Several houseplants can dramatically reduce toxic chemical levels in the air oa home. These include spider plants and the ficus plant.
Keep rooms very clean.

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