Help Your Home To Help Your Health

We think of our home as an impenetrable fortress; the one place in the world where we can find refuge when the rest of the world seems to be pursuing some sort of crazed vendetta against us. Bad day at work? Fight with your significant other? Kids driving you crazy? There’s somewhere in the home where you can retreat from all that whether it’s for a few quiet minutes with a good book or with a long soak in a hot, deep bath. Yet, even when the doors and windows are locked and the blinds are drawn… Your home is not your own. There are all manner of intruders worming their way in (literally, in some cases) and conspiring to ruin your health. Yet when we attend to our homes, we’re too often concerned solely with the superficial and aesthetic. Sufre, redecorating and spring cleaning are a big part of making your home look great and ensuring but they should also be utilized to ensure that your home is full of hazardous pests. Help your home to help your health by nipping these unwelcome intruders right in the bud…

Get mad with mold

We all know then household curse that is black mold. It gathers in dark, warm and damp places and conspires to make our beloved home look like something out of a Silent Hill game. Yet, few of us are aware of just how many health risks black mold represents. If left unchecked it can cause irritation of the sinuses, chronic fatigue, persistent headaches and in some cases nausea and vomiting. Black mold is fairly easy to remove with a combination of hot water and hydrogen peroxide but it’s also important to address the causes of mold in your home otherwise it’s going to come right back again. Mold hates light, cold and dryness, so exposing it to natural light, reducing the temperature and investing in a dehumidifier are worthy pursuits.

Make sure the bed bugs do not bite

Few are savvy to the threat of bed bugs since they’ve been fairly sparse for decades, but recent years have seen a surge in bed bug populations. Most of us don’t know how to spot a bed bug infestation nor are we aware that bed bugs are not exclusively confined to beds. They can live in any article of furniture, gnawing away at you so it pays to know how to spot one. They are ovoid in shape and reddish brown colored. They tend to be between 1 and 7 mm in diameter and mostly active at night. Here’s how you can spot a bed bug bite;

• An itchy, red swollen circle much like a cigarette burn
• Blisters at the site of the bite.
• Bites in lines or small groupings

Only a pro exterminator can remove all signs of infestation but it’s also a good idea to change your mattress every 10 years.

Itchy, stuffy nose? It might be mites

Dust mites lurk in mattresses, are highly allergenic and virtually impossible to see due to their tiny size and translucent bodies. A persistently stuffy, runny nose and watery eyes may be a sign of dust mite infestation. This is easily remedied by using anti dust mite bed covers and a rigorous vacuuming of your bedding and mattress once a month.