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Are you a victim of a creature which you can’t see and can’t feel but you’ll know they’re here? They don’t hid and they won’t bit but by eating your skin, they’ll thrive. They love to live in places that are tepid and humid but they don’t like hot showers or hot bath. You’ll sneeze not because someone is thinking about you but because they’re all around you. Who are they?

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 600 million people worldwide suffer from allergic rhinitis (AR), additionally, with 200 million associated with asthma. Do you also suffer from allergies or asthma? Are you a victim of dust mites? If so, perhaps we all have a common enemy.

What are Dust Mites?

As people mostly refers to House Dust Mites (HDM), a small, roughly 0.008–0.012 inches (0.2-0.3 mm)in length, barely visible creature with eight hairy legs. They mainly consume human and animals dead skin cells, in which a single person's skin cells could fed up millions of dust mites a day. Imagine how that would be like for families of four or more.

Dust mites exist all around the world except Antarctica, since they prefer warm and moist environment. Dust mites appears on mattress, pillows, cushion, blankets, sheets, sofa, carpets, curtains,  and other decorative fabrics. Since textile, fiber surface are most likely to accumulate dust, dead skin cells...etc.

What is Dust Mite Allergy?

We all must’ve heard of what dust mite allergy is, or even experienced it yourself. Allergic diseases caused by house dust mites are allergic rhinitis and also asthma. John Price, professor of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said, "If house dust mite allergic asthmatics don't avoid the mite - their asthma can get worse".  From 60% to 80% of children with asthma are sensitive to household dust mites. In which as they’re exposed to a environment with just a slight amount of dust mites could trigger a severe asthma attack.

Typical house dust mite allergy symptoms are running nose, sneezing, nasal inflammation, watery eyes,itchy nose and skin, coughing, headaches, pr even poor concentration...etc. The symptoms might be worse in the early morning which also leads to poor sleep.

How to Get Rid of Dust Mites?

Dust mites exist not because your house is not clean, they will always exist but the amount of dust mites differs. As dust mites affects one's’ quality of life, we’ll give you some advice to help decrease the dust mites as much as possible.. Remember, the following tips are to reduce the dust mites as much as possible but it’s hard to eliminate them all.

• Wash your bed sheet/ bankets with hot water

Try to wash your bed sheets and blankets once a week. The most important part is to wash them with hot water. Hot water will kill dust mites. Around 60 degree Celsius or more will 100% put dust mites to death. Then, putting your sheets/ blankets into a dryer would definitely help to eliminate the dust mites.

• Hang your sheet under the sun

Direct sunlight for at least 3 hours kills dust mites. By hanging your sheets in the sun whenever possible would be another solution to decrease the amount of dust mites in your sheets.

• Reduce the humidity of your room

Dust mites prefers humid environment around 70-80%. Using dehumidifier to help keep your bedroom humidity low around 50% or less the activity of dust mites will decrease.

In fact, studies shows that electric blankets could also reduce the numbers of dust mites, since electric blankets could lower the humidity of the bed. The change in temperature influence the humidity. As using heating pads for 3 to 5 hours, the temperature beneath the heating blanket increase more than 15℃ or above room temperature. The humidity of the bed decrease to 30% or less which is hard for dust mites to survive.

• Use mattress and pillow covers

Covering your mattress and pillow with covers or special types of covers to keep the dust mites away from you. The covers will help seal in the dust mites and decrease the possibility of inhaling them during sleep. Of course, remember to wash the covers once a week, if possible. You’ll notice that you sleep better and sweeter every night.

• Suck them out with your vacuum cleaner

Vacuum cleaner is also a great way to put off those dust mites. Since dust mites are way too small that we could barely spot them, using vacuum cleaner to suck them out would be another solution.

For the tips above, they are not only useful for getting rid of dust mites, they’re also effective ways to go against bed bugs. You’ll need to put in efforts to have a good night sleep or even getting up without the AHHHH CHOO sneeze!