Dust- What is it and How Do I Get Rid of It?

Cosmic dust, pixie dust, fairy dust. All very nice. How about regular dust? Umm, not as nice.

Dust, by definition, is any minute particle that is measured at less than 500 micrometers in diameter. Unless you have an electron telescope in your spare bedroom that you can use to formally verify what is and what is not dust, then we'll just refer to it as any of the stuff in your house that you see floating around in direct sunlight.

The dust that you wipe up off your favorite armoire is basically you. What I mean by that is that household dust is chiefly comprised of dead skin cells. I know that sounds icky, but the renewal and discharge of skin cells is quite normal. Your entire outer layer of skin is shed every few days at a rate of 7 million skin flakes per minute. If you scratch yourself a lot, then double that.

There's some other stuff floating around too, to be sure. If you have animals, you can add their skin cells, as well as the dander and hair. Pollen from plants, and general paper and textile fibers can also add to the mix.

Of course, dust composition will vary depending on who you are and where you live. Inuits on the frozen tundra probably don't have to break out the Pledge too often. But the home of a hairy Italian guy who owns long-haired dogs and walks around shirtless probably needs to run a wet mop around at least twice daily. An older home too, with poor ventilation, will produce more dust than a new one with good air flow.

Not to despair. Dust itself is also policed by a teeny little guy known as the house dust mite. These mites float around and feed on the skin that sheds off your bodies. The average life cycle for a male dust mite is 20 to 30 days, while a female dust mite can live for 10 weeks. She's busy too, laying 60 to 100 eggs in the last 5 weeks of her life. That's a lot of mites getting it on.

Dust mites thrive in your bedroom environment, in mattresses, carpets, and bedding, especially where the sun's rays do not reach. Mites are climbers too. They can scale up and down through the fabric to avoid sun and vacuum cleaners, and also climb higher up to get to those top shelf skin cells.

Humidity is the dust mite's friend. Even in dry climates, dust mites survive and reproduce easily in bedding because of the humidity generated by the human body during breathing, perspiring, and your other night time activities. Although dust mites feed off of dust, it would be a mistake to believe that the greater amount of mites results in a cleaner house. Quite the opposite is true; keep your house dusted to reduce mite buildup. You know the rhyme... Don't let the bed bugs bite!

The particles that make up house dust easily become airborne. For this reason, simply using a dry cloth to dust is pretty ineffective. So are those feathered dusters. You would be better served grabbing a turkey by the neck and swabbing it around your furniture then using those cheap feather dusters.

Care must be exercised when removing dust, since clearing it off a surface may make it appear that it's been cleaned, but the dust will simply resettle. One way to repel dust is with some kind of electrical charge, but unless you've got a system whereby your furniture is rigged by a Flux Capacitor from "Back to the Future", creating a charge might be a little cumbersome.

On the other hand, house dust can be easily removed by wiping with a damp cloth or an oil based cleaner. That is the most simple, and still the proven and effective way to eliminate dust. Bottom line: If you're good about dusting, you won't see the dreaded dust bunnies blowing through your home like tumbleweeds in the Wild West. Otherwise you've got a showdown on 'yer hands with a posse of dust mites.