Combating Allergens In Your Home: 5 Tips That Will Go A Long Way
That constant coughing and sneezing may not be from a flu infection. Blocked sinuses and a running nose that only seems to affect you when you’re in the house is a sign that the problem could be environmental. Asthma attacks that keep getting triggered whenever you’re in your living room or bedroom, indicates that there are elements in the indoor space that are putting you at risk. The air quality of your home is tied to the condition of your carpets and upholstery. Here are measures that you can put in place to protect your loved ones, and enhance your living conditions:
- Get a welcome mat or area rug for those highly trafficked areas
The mat at the entrance is your first line of protection. When people walk into the house with soiled shoes, this gunk gets transferred onto the carpet. Over time, the particles break down, becoming smaller and lighter, raising into the airspace whenever the carpet is disturbed. Once these are inhaled, they trigger allergic reactions in the affected person. With an entrance mat, however, the amount of soiling that gets into the house is greatly reduced. By their nature, carpets and rugs will lock in the particles within the fibres of the material, preventing them from spreading into the air and throughout your home.
- Keep your carpets and area rugs clean
Yes, their design allows them to reduce the allergen concentration in your living space. However, this does not mean that it will go on perpetually. As the concentration of the particles in the carpets and area rugs increases, so does the ease with which the allergens can be dislodged from the fibres of the material and released into the airspace. Over time, whenever the units are disturbed, even by the simple action of walking on the carpet, they will be more easily released. This is particularly problematic as it will greatly increase the concentration of allergens in the room- far much more than would have occurred initially since there will be a higher concentration of soiling in the units to worry about. Frequently vacuuming, plus routine area rug and carpet cleaning is needed. It is important to note that vacuuming on its own is not enough. While it does lift the dirt and dust particles that are on the carpet surface, there will be plenty more left within the fibres of the material. Pet dander, dust mite waste, pollutants, and everyday dust and grime that is buried in the deep layers of the carpets and area rugs are still a threat to your household members hence the need to schedule professional cleaning services at least once or twice a year- or even more for those households that have pets.
In case there are worries about infections spreading- whether it is in the middle of flu season or your dog has had an unfortunate case of Parvo, sanitizers can be included in the professional area rug and carpet cleaning process. With the bactericidal and virucidal action of these formulations, the health standards of your home get improved, protecting your loved ones. Speaking of protection, the carpets can also be treated with coatings that increase their resistant to soiling, keeping your unit cleaner for longer. Engaging a professional carpet cleaning team for the task enables you to have a wide range of features that you can have implemented for your particular needs. Here, ensure that you hire the services of a reputable firm, one that is both licenced and insured, and whose track record of performance you can look up in order for you to be a position to accurately determine the level of quality of services to expect.
Carpet cleaning and dealing with the upholstery go hand in hand. A significant portion of the day is spent on the cosy sofas, and they will accumulate loads of grime and allergens. High traffic rooms like the living room- where your family spends lots of its time, and being the place where guests are entertained, means that the upholstery there will have higher rates of grime build up. With both sofa and carpet cleaning services, you get to enhance your living conditions, creating a safe space for your family and guests.
- Consider upgrading your vacuum
There are plenty of units out there, each coming with their different features and capacities. However, for the vacuuming to be more thorough, working with vacuums that have HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter mechanisms will add to the efficacy of the process. HEPA filters trap more dust and allergens, filtering those fine particles like pet dander and pollen that are spreading in the airspace- with a capacity of picking up 99.97% or more particles that are as small as 0.3 microns. They are particularly recommended for indoor environments with persons that have a higher sensitivity to allergens and pollutants from the units being worked on- which is also why they are used in areas like hospitals, pharmaceutical industries, nuclear plants and other facilities where clean air is imperative. Not all HEPA filter vacuums are equal. There are those that filter out 85-90% of the particles- which is far less than the industrial-grade units that the professional carpet cleaning crews use. When getting a HEPA filter vacuum, check out aspects such as the MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value) rating. It is a scale going from 1-20. The higher the MERV value, the higher the efficiency of the HEPA filter, and the more particles that the vacuum will pick up.
- Keep Fluffy clean
Ensure that you maintain a strict washing schedule for your pets. Regularly bathing them- and keeping them out of your bedroom, will reduce the amount of dander that gets spread all over your home. Given that fur and dander particles are light and can remain airborne for a couple of hours, additional measures like keeping your bedroom doors closed will reduce the amount of particles that will be floating into them- that way you can enjoy more nights of peaceful sleep- not being interrupted by constant coughing and sneezing.
Combating Allergens In Your Home: 5 Tips That Will Go A Long Way
