Dust mites (otherwise - house dust mites) are present in every room where a person lives or happens. These synanthropic insects simply cannot live without people, since the main food products of these creatures are dead human epidermal cells. In our article, we will examine in detail what dust mites are and what they look like, whether they bite people. We will tell you what methods it is best to get rid of and what preventive measures to take to further their non-proliferation.
Description
Dust mites are very small insects (type - arthropods) belonging to the class of arachnids. But this does not mean that they are like a spider in everything. Their limbs are not so long, poorly developed, but meanwhile, their strength is enough to move freely. They crawl slowly, constantly looking for their own provisions, which, in most cases, are dead cells of the human epidermis or the skin of domestic animals.
What do dust mites really look like? Most of all, they look like bugs if they take their wings off and shorten their legs. A special difference is that they do not have an explicit division of the body into segments. Their whole carcass, if you can call it that, is a solid "cutlet" (in a reduced form, to a size of 0.1-0.5 mm), slightly narrowed to the stigma and thickened to the back of the abdomen. In the front part, the stigma has a pair of small processes resembling hypertrophic mites, with which the insect sends itself to the mouth gap, which he found edible. Some compare them with hippos reduced to microscopic sizes. This is how a dust mite enlarged many times looks in the photo.
They live from 60 to 80 days, during which they manage to go through their entire life cycle, that is, to eat and copulate, after which the female lays up to 60 eggs.
What dust is and why dust mites live in it
For many, this will be a shock, but room dust more than 20% consists of particles flying around us from the dead skin layer, called the epidermis. Moreover, the more people live in the apartment, the richer will be the content of skin flakes in the overall mixture. In addition to them, in the home dust suspension there are:
- smoke particles (soot) 3%;
- fibers of various fabrics and paper - 12%;
- various kinds of mineral particles - 34%;
- pollen of flowers - 6%;
- other pollutants (fragments, scales of animal hair, fluff, etc.) - 25%.
In winter, respectively, pollen of flowers is less, but there are more clothes, and therefore these 6% migrate in favor of what is showered from the upper winter clothes. This is what dust under a microscope looks like.
Favorite places to stay
The more carpets, upholstered furniture and other textile items of decor and interior in the house, the more and faster dust will form in it. For example, carpets are a favorite place for dust mites to live. A huge amount of "food" always settles on them. The following photo shows dust mites that feel great among carpet textile fibers.
Separately, it is worth mentioning about feather and down pillows, as well as mattresses. Scientists also managed to put their hand in it, calculating that up to two million dust mites constantly live in an ordinary average double bed. And feather and down fillers, with a lack of food, can themselves be food for these microscopic creatures.
Separate words deserve items of household and other appliances. Old monitors, music centers, and DVD players are potential cities and hotbeds of dust mites. Among microcircuits, capacitors, resistances and other radio-technical stuffing, there is always a lot of dust, but if there is a lot of dust, and no one cleans it for a long time, ticks live in it especially freely.
Where do they come from dwellings
Ticks themselves do not go from house to house, of course. For them, to overcome such a distance is akin to how a person passes the whole mother Russia from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. Therefore, they are carried by the wind, by people - on shoes, socks, clothes or animal hair. Any speck of dust circling the street in a residential quarter may contain several ātravelersā who were accidentally blown by a draft from the window of a neighboring house.
Can dust mites be seen with the naked eye?
When asked what the dust mite looks like with the naked eye, weāll answer that these creatures cannot be seen even under a magnifying glass. On average, the size of ticks is 0.2 mm, which means that without special equipment these creatures simply can not be found. And the way dust mites look under a microscope causes horror and disgust for many. These are pests with a repulsive appearance, and by their very appearance it becomes clear that nothing good can be expected from them.
Dust mite from a medical point of view
Let us now look at the problem from a medical point of view: what is a dust mite? And how to get rid of it? And in general, is this possible? Let's start with the first question. Doctors warn that dust mites are malicious pathogens of bronchial asthma. Often they can also be carriers of other dangerous infections. In addition to bronchial asthma, they can also be causes:
- conjunctivitis;
- rhinitis;
- respiratory allergosis ;
- dermatitis of an allergenic nature;
- Quincke's edema.
Any reaction of the human body to the effects of ticks and the enzymes secreted by them is summarized under the single name ātick-borne sensitizationā.
Do dust mites bite?
We have already seen how dust mites look. From the photos provided, it becomes clear that they do not have ābitingā organs as such. In everyday life, we used to call a bite - sting injections (for example, a mosquito), skin tucks with front claws on the snout (some spiders, forest, meadow ticks, beetles), etc. But this does not apply to dust mites. Even if they even have a hole with some kind of sting, with which the insects absorb the same flakes of the upper layer of the epidermis that once fell off a person, they simply cannot bite the skin tissue with them.
Unable to, they will pinch her and somehow noticeably. These creatures are so scanty that any of their mechanical effects on the epidermis will be imperceptible from an anatomical point of view. By their effects on the skin tissue, they will not be able to excite more than a single nerve receptor of the human body, regardless of its location.
In addition, dust mites are able to digest only particles of dead epidermis. Living skin is not food for them. In large-scale and biological proportions, a tick bite can be compared to as if a person wanted to bite for a thigh 100 times the size of a wild boar. Firstly, the material is too coarse - itās not human teeth, and secondly, the surface tissue of the boarās thigh will not work.
But some may protest, they say, we all saw what the bites of dust mites look like, where do they come from if the mites do not bite?
What is a dust mite bite?
The bites of dust mites are popularly called redness that appeared on places where the human skin was exposed to the enzymes secreted by them, with which the feces of microscopic insects are saturated. Each tick per day can āgo to the toilet in a big wayā 20 times, therefore, on the scale of a double bed, this will be a real disaster for a person in whom this enzyme can cause an allergic reaction.
Usually, people have a strong immunity to this substance. But there are exceptions, nevertheless. In addition to the varieties of dust mites themselves, there are many, and it is possible that the feces of some species may ānot fitā some person.
Who is most afraid of dust mites?
Tick-borne sensitization is most often affected by people with asthma and children. If for no apparent reason the child begins to cough and develops a runny nose, and there are no outbreaks around the disease, most likely the reason is the babyās reaction to the presence of too many dust mites in the home.
Also, symptoms of an allergy in children to a dust mite are pronounced redness that comes from nowhere on the skin of a child (dermatitis). You should not be afraid of such irritations, since current medicine has easily learned to cope with such allergic manifestations. A photo with dust mite bites on a personās body looks rather unpleasant.
If you notice such irritation on your childās skin, it means that the number of insects has exceeded all permissible limits and itās time to seriously take care of cleaning the house, arranging a real Armageddon for uninvited cohabitants.
Extermination measures
In a specialized store you can find a wide variety of tools that can help get rid of ticks that have multiplied in the home. In most cases, these funds are sprays that are completely safe for humans, but at the same time, deadly for hated insects.
They should handle mattresses, pillows and blankets. The removed bedding, so that all the creatures that nestled in it, rested, can be soaked in hot water. The most comfortable temperature for these insects is 15-25 Ā° C. Frost or heat is fatal to them.
To clean carpets and rugs, special cleaning products are available in the form of concentrated shampoos. If you wipe the floors and other surfaces with a solution of such a tool, as well as clean the carpeting, all the pests that inhabit them will certainly go to the other world.
Be that as it may, not one tool will help get rid of dust mites 100%. But to reduce the size of the population of insects to a safe minimum for humans.
Prevention
To prevent pests from breeding again, basic preventive measures should be followed. Here is a list of actions to help keep the dust mite population under control:
- Every week, general wet cleaning should be carried out in each living room. If you donāt want to spend money on special products, you can splash a little vinegar essence into a basin or bucket of water. The smell will leave in an hour, but the creatures will die with even greater intensity.
- All upholstered furniture must be thoroughly vacuumed. Minus ticks in their light weight and slowness. They do not run away from a vacuum cleaner like rats. Moreover, by virtue of their underdeveloped mind, they will not understand at all how side such a cruel relocation to the landfill befell them. They nest mainly in the upper layers of upholstered furniture material, since there is no food for them inside the upholstery. Therefore, a greater number of their "personnel" will be necessarily collected by a vacuum cleaner.
- In the summer, take out pillows, blankets and mattresses to dry in the sun. Moreover, insects will die from excessive overheating, because ultraviolet itself is also harmful to them. In a few hours of such a "sunbath", your bedding will get rid of the lion's share of the total number of ticks that have nested in them.
- In winter, in sunny frosty weather, the laundry you bring to fresh air will be completely free of all ticks. If the sun couldnāt penetrate the down or feather pillow in the summer, then the frost will certainly break it to the ground.
It should not be forgotten that the smaller the number of stale items, carpets and other products, small parts, hard-to-reach slots and old household appliances in the apartment, the smaller the number of nurseries that produce new hordes of ticks. Get rid of everything superfluous, and you, without any doubt, will breathe easier, and it was said in the literal sense of the word.
Conclusion
From the foregoing, it is clear that no matter how dust mites look in the photo, they themselves are not dangerous. By and large, these are miserable creatures that can only eat and highlight their metabolic products. The danger to humans is represented only by their enzymes produced by them along with bowel movements. And even then only in cases when the concentration of insects exceeds all conceivable limits. But simple preventive measures, together with special sprays, will certainly help eliminate this problem.