Dust Mites have been on earth for over 400 million years with the House Dust Mite appearing around 23 million years ago. They are members of the Phylum Arthropoda, Group Arachnida and Order Acarina. Dust Mites are not spiders or insects but a group of their own closely related to ticks.
Dust Mites live in mattresses, pillows, carpets, fabric furniture and stuffed toys. They like to burrow into the fabric and escape the light. We are exposed to the allergenic by-products of Dust Mites while we sleep. Although new homes or furniture are dust-free, within a month both are populated with Dust Mites that come from other areas in which people spend time, such as their vehicles, boats/yachts, RV's, offices or other peoples homes.
Dust Mites live in the fine layer of minute dust particles that seems to appear in your home from nowhere. They are scavengers whose diet consists mainly of human skin flakes. Since we continuously shed skin, as many as 50 million flakes of dead skin a day, the House Dust Mite has an abundance of food.
Although they don't bite, their waste products or better known as fecal matter, when inhaled by sensitive people, cause ALLERGY SYMPTOMS. They only live for about 2-4 months, but during its life the Dust Mite produces about 200 its weight in waste product and can lay up to 300 eggs!
Due to their light weight Dust Mites also become Airborne. Routine activities such as making the bed or children jumping and playing can send them floating in the air where they are then distributed throughout the house and are inevitably inhaled as we breathe.
About 80 percent of what you see floating in a ray of sunshine entering your home is dead skin, and we can see only 10 percent of the airborne pollutants. Other floating particles include dead Dust Mites and their fecal matter/waste products. These waste-products, which are proteins, actually provoke the allergic reaction.
Original Post
