Home Fight with Allergens: Mites, Dander, Mold

Houses closed up for heating or air conditioning create a battle ground for millions of Americans. Even when you think you're safe in your home, dust mites, pet dander, and mold can make life every bit as hard inside as outdoors if you're an allergy sufferer.

Although it will take concentrated effort, there are ways to lessen your risks when it comes to household allergens, and the most effective place to begin is in your bedroom. That's the main room where dust mites make their home, and where you spend a considerable amount of time every day. Dust mites live on dead skin, and you can easily have two million of them living in your bed and on your pillows.

You can fight back against exploding dust mite populations by washing your linens in hot water once a week during July and August, when mites become the number one cause of indoor allergies in America. You could also use allergen-proof pillow cases and bed covers (although some recent research has suggested that they may not as effective as we'd originally been led to believe).

Another place to look is on your children's collection of stuffed animals. They can contain millions of dust mites, and they rarely, if ever, get washed. In order to fight back, give those stuffed critters a bath in the washer if they're machine washable. If they're not, put them into plastic bags and then let them sit in the freezer for at least twenty-four hours. That should be long enough to kill most of the mites a stuffed animal might be harboring.

More than ten million Americans are allergic to cat dander, which makes it a serious problem across the country, and nearly every U.S. household contains at least some cat and dog allergens, even if those homes don't contain pets. Cat dander is far and away the most likely to cause problems, especially light-haired female cats, according to recent studies. Dogs and rodent dander also causes significant allergy problems for Americans, although not as often as cat dander.

Keeping animals off the household furniture, and especially off your bed, which is already home to dust mites, can go a long way toward controlling your home's pet dander problems. Washing your pet at least once a week is also an effective way to keep the amount of pet dander in your home down to a manageable level.

Indoor mold spores are invisible, but they can cause problems for allergy-prone people at any time of year. Your home's greatest concentrations of mold spores can generally be found in the basement, as well as in your bathrooms and closets. If you are the type of person who likes to bring lots of greenery into your home, mold spores can also hide in your houseplants, as well.

The best way to fight mold is to roll up your sleeves and start scrubbing, using a mixture of water and bleach. Reducing humidity in your home can also help minimize mold populations. A dehumidifier or air conditioner can be helpful tools for fighting mold.

It can be a frustrating experience, but you can win the battle against allergens in your home if you're willing to put forth the effort.

Jeanette Fisher, interior design teacher, has researched the effects of the environment on emotions for over 15 years. For Environmental Psychology information, see http://www.environmentpsychology.com.

Jeanette J. Fisher

Mold Allergy And What To Do

25 million Americans suffer from allergic reactions to molds, most of them don't even realize they have a mold allergy; that when they are sneezing and sniffling the cause is molds.

Mold spore allergy is common as mold can be found almost everywhere, and all molds reproduce by spores, and send the spore airborne, which causes allergic reactions in many individuals.

Airborne mold spores can cause you to be ill and eventually destroy your health. Many people are unaware that they are breathing mold spores until they are very sick.

As stated, molds produce airborne toxins - these can cause serious breathing difficulties, memory and hearing loss, dizziness, flu-like symptoms, and bleeding in the lungs. Yes, it can be that bad.

So it is important to find out where you might have mold in your home and at work by doing a mold test. Molds can be found wherever there is moisture, oxygen, warmth and something to feed on. Warmth and high humidity stimulate mold growth, so mold allergy tends to be most prevalent during the hot, humid summer months.

One of the easiest ways to find out if you have mold in your home is to order a mold test kit online. Look around a little for tests that will test for many molds, or ones that will test for black mold specifically.

A mold test kit is also a great way to test for mold at work. If you find a high count, then go to your supervisor or boss with the information and ask them to do something about it as you have a mold allergy, and others are probably being affected as well.

Get to the bottom of your mold allergy. Now you want to look around for mold in your home. Start with a visual inspection for both mold and moisture around windows, sinks, and water lines.

If you kit shows that you have mold in your home, you may need to get to the bottom of your mold allergy by having a mold inspector come to your home. An inspector will give you a much more thorough inspection that you would not be able to do for yourself.

The inspector will look at such things as:

Humidity of the indoor air, using a properly calibrated meter
Heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems
Moisture barriers for proper installation and condensation
All water-damaged areas, and locate the point of water intrusion

Mold allergy can make you seriously ill, so take steps soon to locate mold in your home and clear it.

Article By Jeannie Crabtree C.Ac. Learn more tips about Allergy and Allergy Relief by visiting her site and getting the Health Tips Newsletter and other Health and Nutrition tips.

Remedies For Taking Out The Smell For Mold And Mildew

Do you have a mildew problem, basement mold that is creating a funky musty odor? The odor is very common in your basement, mildew mold is from a warm moist climate. Hence most basements are moist and dark they are great breeding grounds for black mold. It is even familiar when there is a heavy amount of mildew present, that a susceptible individual could acquire allergies and common mold symptoms from the mold settling on the surface. By just having a small amount of basement mildew mold in the house, one could become quite sick just by walking into the small area. This happens because there is no circulation of fresh air and when inhaling the airborne mold spores in a warm musty basement the toxic mold spores will enter into the system and attach into the bodies lungs and nasal cavities.

These will cause some common and very harmful mold symptoms, such as headaches, water eyes, and others. Some common symptoms of mold are coughing, headaches, scratchy throat, and blood in the lungs. Mold symptoms become common in individuals who have lower immunity such as the elderly and infants. We call this immuno comprimised. Having mold in your breathinh space may cause many Mold Symptoms. Scratchy throats are common. An individual may feel their throat to be scratchy almost as if they have to cough. A scratchy throat is a common black mold identifier.

There are a couple of ways to fix a mildew problem in a basement. Since the first problem in the basement is air circulation you want to purify the air and use heppa filters, better air circulation is highly recommendedt. By having new air to circulate keeping the humidity down, the basement and confined area will become a complex place for the spores to thrive and amplify.

A well-known issue that arises in killing mold mildew in a basement is searching through the carpeting. You should always be aware if there ever been a leak inside the basement or some type of water intrusion event, if so black mold may be on the carpet and rather than hiring a carpet cleaning company you may want to replace the entire carpeting. Since the carpeting became extremely damp it will be unfeasible to remove the spores from the old carpet. Even the tack strips below the carpeting would need to be removed. This is very common with basement mildew mold, just be sure to maintain the carpeting and if one is going to rip out the carpets make sure to remove the tack steps below. The wooden tack strips can carry quite a bit of mildew and mold. If you have some amount of mold in the basement and on carpeting and are tired of cleaning it continuously spray it down with a organic mold cleaning product. In order for the removal of use an all natural organic product that is used for killing mold and mildew. If you are planning on killing mold and mildew in the basement it may be a everlasting task unless you try a mold blocking solution that offers mold prevention and mold removal. Most solutions will kill the mold, but not stop it or take away the musty odor. If a mold problem becomes a bigger issue it may be to late to spray it down with an allnatural cleaning product, you need to look into hiring a certified mold inspector. They will create protocols for a mold remediation company and get the ball rolling for your mold problem.

So if you are finding a musty odor in the house, you may have mold or a previous water event that was not taken care of correctly. If ever needing more information on black mold visit a free Mold Removal Website that offers information from a certified microbial consultant.

Markus Skupeika Mold Removal

6 Tips to Stop Mold Growing in Your Home

It is normal to find mold spores in a homes indoor air and surfaces such as clothes, walls, and furniture. Most of the time mold spores found indoors are from outside sources. Regular housekeeping cleaning helps keep mold levels low. Cleaning small areas of visible mold, like the mold around your shower, is obligatory to maintain sanitary conditions.

When you should be more concerned is when your home has a large-scale of active mold growing. Such problems are most likely to happen when there's been an on-going water leak, flood, or excessively high levels of humidity in the home. Indoor mold growth may lead to high levels of airborne mold spores, which, in turn, can trigger the spread of mold growth from the original source to additional areas of the home having high moisture levels.

Extensive mold growth will damage your home and furnishings, like carpets, sofas and cabinets. Over a period of time, uncontrolled mold growth can even instigate damage to structural elements of your home. While there is no practical way to eliminate all mold and mold spores in the indoor environment, keeping your home clean and dry can avert extensive mold growth and the ensuing damage.

Damage to your home and possessions is not the only reason to be concerned with mold. Although most people are exposed to small amounts of mold or their spores on a daily basis without apparent harm, mold is an unsanitary condition that may present potential health risks to certain individuals.

Possible adverse health effects produced by molds can include allergic, irritating, or toxigenic effects, and even infections, allergic reactions being the most common. Symptoms reported by affected people include: respiratory conditions, such as wheezing, difficulty breathing, and shortness of breath, sneezing and/or nasal congestion, eye and/or throat irritation, headaches and fatigue. Here are a few tips to keep moisture from becoming a breeding ground in your home for molds.

1. Ensure that bathrooms, dryers and other moisture-creating sources are vented to the outside

2. Take care not to block any of your house's air conditioning vents

3. Install de-humidifiers in basements and crawlspaces. 4. Use your kitchen's exhaust fans when cooking

5. Install insulation on cold surfaces like piping, air ducts or basement walls to lessen possibilities of condensation

6. Install moisture sensor alarms in potential water back-up and overflow areas to alert you when a leak occurs.

Carlo Morelli writes for OnlineTips.Org, where you can read tips on basement dehumidifiers, Oreck air purifiers, and other home and garden topics.