I’m a long time dust mite allergy suffer and I have tried nearly everything over the years to get dust mite relief. Dust mites can live in your bed, all over your sheets, and all over you bedroom, if you let them. These are a few things, I personally have found especially helpful to kill bedroom dust mite and help me breathe and sleep easier.
Fighting and Eliminating Dust
- Remove Bedroom Stuff – from your bedroom and do you best to keep it that way, it isn’t easy I know. You’re aiming for a bare spartan look, for example – the fewer magazines on night stands or clothes on top bureaus, means less dust and less dust mites.
- Vacuum regularly – Running the vacuum at least once weekly, will do a lot to reduce allergic reactions. Especially if you use a good quality HEPA Vacuum Cleaner such as the Miele Compact C2 Electro or C3 Kona Vacuum Cleaner.
- Cloth rags – aren’t the best option for cleaning up dust. Cloth dusting rags usually just redistributes the dust around the bedroom and aggravates your allergens. This means it’s best to use the special on-board vacuum tools to get to get into those hard to reach places:
- pictures tops, door headers, corners, blinds, lampshades, underneath the bed or furniture.
- Small brooms – using small push brooms, like a ‘Swiffer’, to keep down the dust bunnies on hardwood floors in between vacuuming. You will be surprised at how much dust it picks up even if you do it regularly.
- Minimize carpets and draperies – getting rid of carpets and drapes will help you remove a place dust mites like to hang out. Using a little washable cotton rug by your bedside to save your feet from freezing in winter is a great option if you’re able to get rid of your rugs.
Cleaning and Making your bed
- 140 degree Fahrenheit (60°C) water – it is the right temperature at which to wash your sheets and mattress pad because it kills dust mites. Washing at such a high temperature might be inconvenient at first, like having to up the temperature in your hot water heater, but it will up the dust mite killing and cleaning power.
- Tannic acid – for cleaning or using one of commercial cleaners containing Tannic acid to eliminate the dust mites. Take a look on the label for the ingredients for tannic acid, which is naturally occurring in certain types of leaves and tree bark.
Bedroom and the bedroom air
- Keep your closet or bureau closed. Clothes are great collectors of dust and particulates.
- Humidity level at 50% or less, it’s good for keep the dust mites down. Start with a hygrometer, which will measure the humidity level, and if you consistently have humidity consider either a air conditioner or a dehumidifier will do the trick in measuring this.
- Clean your house’s ductwork every few years. It’s best to get it done professionally and it’s better to find a certified duct cleaner. All duct cleaning services are not made equal.
- Change the filters for your Room Air-conditioner – Do you really want to breathe in mold and dust blown out by a dirty air conditioner?
- Change the your furnace filters – per the manufacturer’s instructions to keep the air cleaner in your home. The best furnace filters are here.
- Use a Vapor Steam Cleaner – on your bedding to assist in killing dust mites between washes. They are hot enough to kill dust mites.
- Frost kills dust mites – take advantage of the cold weather, put pillows, stuffed toys, any thing that could host dust mites into plastic bags and put them outside in the deep freeze.
- Use a high quality HEPA Air Filter – to filter out allergens. Find one that will do the job at low frequency so that you do not have to live with noise of a filter at high speed. Several good air purifiers can be found at our air purifier page.