Does anyone know if there is a way to kill dust mites ?
Sunshine kills them. Water over 130F kills them. Chlorine bleach kills them. Humidity below 45% kills them. Freezing kills them. Drycleaning kills them. Temperatures below 70F discourage them. Killing them, however, does not remove their little corpses and droppings, which are what cause allergies. Washing and vacuuming are the best you can do, in that respect.
Reference “Home Comforts” by Cheryl Mendelson.
You can also drive them away temporarily. For example, if you set your electric blanket on high when you are not in bed, they will crawl away from the mattress.
It has been estimated that a bed pillow exceeding two or three years old is over 25% dust mites by weight. If that doesn’t put you off your kibble, I don’t know what will.
Thank you all for your help. all of a sudden I have been plagued by these filthy beasts and will be spending the weekend tearing my house apart to clean their carcasses and droppings after I kill them all. what the hell I havent slept more than 4 hrs a night in the last 3 weeks anyway. Since I’ll be awake I might as well be productive.
Zenster, I’m gonna need a cite on that one.
Why ask Zenster when you’ve got **Cecil**?
There are also chemicals that can be used to neutralize the allergenic effect of dust mite carcasses and droppings. Some products contain tannic acid, not sure what is in the others. Google for allegy supply should get you some options to buy this stuff. In my experience, the air feels tangibly more breathable to dust mite allergy sufferers almost immediately and has a slight, mildly annoying odor to non-sufferers.
And cleaning it all up yourself is likely to make you even more miserable, so if there’s a beerdude, get him involved!
Wo, I love Cecil’s last paragraph about communicating with the media! Cecil
Uh… hon… dust mites are too small to see. What you are describing are either ticks, or fleas, or bedbugs.