http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000407.html
Where do all the skin bits and mites hide out in a waterbed?
Someday, I’ll figure out how to (correctly) post a URL…
sigh
Malaca-
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This dust deal is probably just bad math. They (kids in my elementary school, to be exact) used to take the fact that you replace all your skin every 7 years and figure out how many pounds of dust that would make. Since that’s an unreal amount, they figure all the dust in your house must come from the skin. This is a fallacy. Why, I don’t know, but it must be, mustn’t it?
tshirts said:
Several problems. Who says you replace all your skin every 7 years? You often hear that, but you often hear lots of things. Even if you do, it’s hardly likely that’s all going to be sitting around your house. I mean, you do go outside, yes? I also assume you clean house every now and again, so you’re not going to have seven years of skin sheddings in place at once. And i’ll bet you drop quite a bit of it in the shower, such that it ends up down the drain rather than under the sofa. Likewise, if you wash your bed linen with some reasonable frequency, you’ll dispose of whatever part of you exfoliage it collects as well. Basically, you’re extrapolating from questionable data without accounting for numerous significant factors, and getting a predictably absurd result.
One thing that I would like to know along this line of thinking is, my mother always put out our mattresses usually in July, or August. Whichever was hotter, and took more of us kids to sweat over! She said she did it to kill the dust mites, which even as a kid, freaked my lil cleanfreak self out!
Does the sun kill those pests while they are STILL INSIDE the mattress??
I do wash sheets every week, and all bedding once a month, but I’ve resisted that last bit about taking all the mattresses out to the back deck mid summer, just out of HOPE that this is a myth!!
Anyone know??
Judy
“Muck should replace ‘suck’. For ‘muck’ is yucky, while ‘suck’ feels very lucky. So, don’t stay stuck on suck, switch to MUCK, today.”
i’d opine that sunlight killing dustmites is a bit on the improbable side. the more likely utility of “airing out the bedding”, which was, once on a time, probably a near-universal springtime ritual, was to give the mattress a good beating (most useful to pound the straw filling back into a more comfortable configuration, and maybe even shake out a few unwanted inhabitants like fleas, bedbugs, what-have-you). strong sunlight might also have a mildly antiseptic quality as far as killing some minor molds, mildews, and bleaching out stains and mild odors. but i’d think that if the dustmites were particularly imperiled, all they’d need to do would be burrow deeper, away from the light, until the crisis has passed.
my $.02 before taxes; your mileage may vary.
Your answer made so much sense, that I’m going to leave the mattresses on the beds!
Thanks for convincing me! 
Judy
“Muck should replace ‘suck’. For ‘muck’ is yucky, while ‘suck’ feels very lucky. So, don’t stay stuck on suck, switch to MUCK, today.”
I’m just disappointed in the Journal. And after Cecil tossed them that softball on the Creole thing, too.
Thanks for all the replies!
On a side note…
Last nights Frasier episode had Daphne using her new “Dirt Buster 2000” vaccuum cleaner.
The cleaner was nearly half full of dirt, which she explained, came from Frasier’s pillow. “You know…skin particles, dust mites…all manner of things can be found in a bed.”
The writers must not be Dopers…
No, they are probably the trolls!!
“Please Disregard the Following.”