aka...science room
dust mites
Did you realise that 10% of the weight of your 2 year old pillow is probably dust mites?
A mattress can contain up to 10 million mites! Pillows and mattresses are the dust mite’s ideal home since they are warm and humid and contain a ready source of food – your skin.
Dust mites are tiny – they are only 0.2mm long. If you looked through a good magnifying glass you would see them as stripy see-through ovals, with no eyes, antennae or mouth-parts. Instead of proper biting mouth-parts, dust mites have mouths shaped like straws. They belch digestive juices onto the skin flakes found in dust to dissolve them before sucking the goo up through their straw.
Dust mites never have to worry where their next meal is coming from since we shed five and a half grams of dead skin a day. Along with dead skin, dust also contains: ash, fingernail filings, glass particles, hair, insect fragments, salt and sugar crystals, soil, fungal spores, stone particles and dust mites.
All this will come flying out when you give your cushion a bash, along with dust mite droppings that can make you cough and sneeze.
<< Go Back