You often take for granted the clean air you breathe in every day. After doing it for so long all of your life, it becomes standard, and you don’t think twice about it. When you can’t breathe because of indoor allergens, though, that’s when a realization sets in. Clean air is vital to do even the simplest of tasks, from cooking to cleaning your home.
To keep up with your normal routines, breathing fresh air without any trouble, you need to follow this indoor allergen-removal guide. It can help you destroy the most common indoor allergens that keep rearing their ugly head in your household.
Common Indoor Allergens
Dust
Pet Dander
Mold Spores
Cockroaches
If you fail to clean on a regular basis, your home is more susceptible to dust. Although this seems harmless, it can affect your overall breathing and worsen your symptoms associated with indoor allergens. This is why you need to take a proactive stance on house dust, removing it as quickly as possible.
Start with some basic cleaning – focusing on major areas of your home. Clean surfaces that don’t receive a lot of traffic, as this is where most of the dust will collect. You can use a dust-cleaning wand, or simply a washcloth covered in warm water. The former method is typically recommended if you need to reach areas that are high up, such as ceilings and large closets.
Once you’ve given these areas a quick clean, shift your attention to the floors. They are prone to collecting dust over time, particularly if you have long carpet. The fibers attract dust like magnets, so you’ll want to clean them with a vacuum regularly. Make sure the vacuum features a HEPA filter. It’s designed to force air through a fine mesh material that traps the tiniest of dust particles. They then can’t circulate further after each clean and cause your breathing woes to worsen.
If you’re like many homeowners, you probably have pets lingering around your property. These lovable creatures provide so much joy, but not when it comes to the dander that they leave behind. If you’re not careful, your immunity to these allergens may start diminishing over time. Then, you’ll be more prone to symptoms that include ongoing coughs, a stuffy nose, fatigue, chills, and even fever.
There are several effective strategies that you can employ to deal with dander, ensuring your lovable pet is not a burden to your entire family. One of the easiest is to groom your pet on a regular basis. This helps remove loose hair and prevents it from recirculating back into your home. You don’t have to clean your pet, either. Professional groomers can take care of this task every week to save you time and energy.
You’ll also want to wash your walls and floors with hot soapy water from time to time. Erroneous hairs then won’t spread to other surfaces. Steaming upholstery and furniture pieces is another great tip, especially if pet hair has had a long time to build-up on these surfaces. A couple of swipes with an appropriate steam device should take care of this hair and leave these pieces looking fresh.
Don’t forget to change your AC filter regularly, especially if you suffer from allergies. It’s a pet dander and dust magnet.
Perhaps the most damaging allergens to your lungs, affecting your overall quality of breathing, are mold spores. They come from fungi outside of your house and can quickly spread – causing more spores to develop in relatively short order. Even worse, symptoms associated with mold spores are pretty frightening. They could, for example, cause skin and eye irritation, nasal stuffiness, itchiness, and even chronic lung disease. As you can see, it’s important that you identify and eradicate mold spores before they have time to do irreversible damage.
There are many ways you can remove mold spores from your house, but probably the easiest is to prevent mold from ever growing. What this entails is getting rid of moist, humid areas in your household. Typically, these environments are found in the bathroom and kitchen. Make sure there are no pipes in these areas leaking that can cause moisture build-up.
Now, it’s time to talk about one of the creepier and more disgusting allergen forms. This is, of course, cockroaches. You know these unwanted pests are dirty and could be carrying diseases, but did you know they can affect your indoor air quality? That’s because their droppings and body parts contain special proteins – which can trigger allergic reactions in a lot of people.
To put a stop to these pesky creatures and reduce indoor allergens once and for all, you need to develop a prevention and eradication strategy. Keeping cockroaches at bay is as simple as keeping your household clean. Then, these insects don’t have natural environments to breed and cause damage to your property. Any food and drinks need to be put up and sealed and consider keeping each room as cool as possible. After all, cockroaches are most active once temperatures start rising.
If cockroaches are already on your premises, you need to set out the appropriate traps. Or, you can make your own homemade pesticides – which isn’t that difficult. All you need is some boric acid, mixed with some powdered sugar. The latter ingredient helps attract cockroaches, while the boric acid kills them almost immediately. Just make sure children and pets are monitored to ensure they don’t get into these potent solutions.
Just because there are dozens of substances and particles that could worsen your indoor allergies, doesn’t mean you can’t live a happy life and breathe in clean air. All you need to do is identify allergens lurking around your home and come up with an effective process for removing them. Then, you and your family can improve the indoor air quality like never before.