Are there asthma triggers in my house?

Many people don't realize that there are a LOT of things in your house that can affect your asthma. 

Things like:

• carpet
• pets
• dust on blinds
• dust under beds
• sheets that aren't cleaned often
• water damage
• dusty vents

We went through our house with an experienced housing expert to see if there was something we were missing.   Daughter Kitty has been in her yellow zone for a couple of months. She is on the highest dose of several allergy and asthma medicines, but it still having a tough time with her asthma.

I thought we were being careful. We have tried many things over the years, such as:

• Wood floors (easier than carpet to see the dust and keep clean)
• Removing our shoes when we come in the house (we store them in a big basket by the front door)
• Vacuum every week with a good vacuum (we have been slacking off on this...)
• Wash our sheets EVERY week in hot water (we do this, but the kids don't)
• Get new pillows every January during the White Sales
• Use allergy covers on the mattress and pillows
• Cleaned out the air conditioning/heating vents when we moved in
• Removed the swamp cooler and installed central air
• Don't store anything under the bed (so we can vacuum under the beds each week)
• Use roll up shades in the bedrooms (to avoid the dust that builds up on horizontal blinds)
• Showering before bed during pollen season (to remove the pollen from our hair and bodies)

What did we find? Well, you'll have to wait until next week to find out. (Kind of like waiting for the next episode of Downton Abbey....)

 Until then, check out Minnesota Department of Health's "Home Environment and Asthma" page. You don't need a Housing Expert. You can watch a video on their website to see how to inspect your own house. 

 

Happy viewing!