Why dust never sleeps

Once a week, Diane Foernssler takes arms against the dust that invades her home, using everything from the vacuum cleaner to a special mop.

On those other six days, however, the dust wins.

“It’s everywhere and it never goes away,” says Foernssler, a fitness trainer and mother of two. “It’s a losing battle.” Unfortunately, she’s right. Experts say dust’s constant accumulation on all those books, clothes and knickknacks has nothing to do with poor housekeeping. It’s a naturally and continually forming collection of some pretty gross stuff.

“It has nothing to do with being dirty,” says Dr. William Berger, an allergist based in California and the author of Asthma and Allergies for Dummies. “You can leave your house closed for two or three weeks and come back and there will be dust.”

A whole lot of it. According to Berger, the average home collects 40 pounds of dust each year. The main contributors to all that indoor dust are microscopic dust mites, the breakdown of fibres from household fabrics and furniture, and human and animal dander (the nice name for skin flakes).

The dust mites, which have a taste for human skin, come in “countless numbers” in your bedding alone, let alone other spots around the house, Berger said. Getting rid of them is impossible. Females lay 20 to 50 eggs every three weeks.

Dust and dust mites are a large part of “indoor air pollution,” a leading environmental health risk — primarily because people spend about 90 per cent of their time indoors, according to Molly Hooven, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency. Dust and dust mites can trigger asthma attacks and allergies.

There are steps you can take to mitigate the accumulation of dust in your home, she says. The first is get rid of stuff.

“The more clutter there is, the more dust there is,” Berger says. She suggests concentrating dust-fighting efforts on bedrooms, since we spend about one-third of our lives asleep. For walls, using paint that can be cleaned with water is helpful. So are HEPA (short for High-Efficiency Particulate Arresting) air filters.

Occasionally using those old standbys — a vacuum and a can of dusting aid — also provide at least temporary relief, Berger says.