Dust mites (otherwise - house dust mites) are present in every room where a person lives or visits. These synanthropic insects simply cannot live without people, since the main food of these creatures are dead cells of the human epidermis. In our article, we will understand in detail what dust mites are and how they look, whether they bite people. We will tell you what methods are best to get rid of them and what preventive measures to take to prevent their further 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, they are poorly developed, but meanwhile, their strength is enough to move freely. crawlthey are slowly, constantly looking for provisions for themselves, 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 tear off their wings and shorten their legs. A special difference is that they do not have a clear division of the body into segments. Their entire carcass, if it can be called that, is a continuous “cutlet” (in a reduced form, up to a size of 0.1-0.5 mm), slightly narrowed towards the stigma and thickened towards the back of the abdomen. In the front part, the stigma has a pair of small processes, resembling hypertrophied mites, with which the insect sends the edible found to itself into the mouth. Some compare them to microscopically reduced hippos. This is what a dust mite looks like in the photo, enlarged many times.
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 is dust and why do dust mites live in it
For many it will be a shock, but more than 20% of room dust consists of particles of the dead upper layer of the skin flying around us, called the epidermis. Moreover, the more people live in the apartment, the richer the content of skin flakes in the total mixture will be. In addition to them, home dust suspension contains:
- smoke particles (soot) 3%;
- fibers of various fabrics and papers –12%;
- various mineral particles – 34%;
- flower pollen – 6%;
- other pollutants (fragments, scales of animal hair, fluff, etc.) - 25%.
In winter, respectively, there is less pollen from flowers, but more clothes, and therefore these 6% migrate in favor of what is showered from the top winter clothes. This is what dust looks like under a microscope.
Favorite places to live
The more carpets, upholstered furniture and other textile decor and interior items in the house, the more and faster dust will form in it. For example, carpets are a favorite habitat for dust mites. A huge amount of "provision" always settles on them. In the next photo, dust mites feel great among carpet textile fibers.
Separately, it is worth mentioning feather and down pillows, as well as mattresses. Scientists have had time to put their hand here too, estimating 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.
Items of household and other appliances deserve a separate word. Old monitors, music centers and DVD players are potential megacities and breeding grounds for dust mites. Among microcircuits, capacitors, resistances and other electronic 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 in dwellings
Ticks themselves, of course, do not go from house to house. For them, to overcome such a distance is akin to how a person to go through the whole of Mother Russia from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. Therefore, they are carried by the wind, people - on shoes, socks, clothes or on animal hair. Any speck of dust circling the street in a residential area may contain several "travelers" who were accidentally blown out by a draft from the window of a neighboring house.
Can dust mites be seen with the naked eye?
To the question of what a dust mite looks like with the naked eye, we will 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 cannot be detected. 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
Now let's 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 it possible? Let's start with the first question. Doctors warn that dust mites are malignant causative agents of bronchial asthma. Often they can be carriers of other dangerous infections. In addition to bronchial asthma, they can also be causes of:
- conjunctivitis;
- rhinitis;
- respiratory allergy;
- allergenic dermatitis;
- Quincke's edema.
Any reaction of the human body to the effects of ticks and the enzymes they secrete is summarized under the single name "tick sensitization".
Do dust mites bite?
We've already seen what dust mites look like. From the photos provided, it becomes clear that they do not have “biting” organs as such. In everyday life, we used to call it a bite - pricks with a sting (for example, a mosquito), pinching the skin with front claws on the snout (some spiders, forest, meadow mites, beetles), etc. But this does not apply to dust mites. Even if they have a hole with some kind of mandibles, with which insects absorb all the same flakes of the upper layer of the epidermis that once fell off a person, then they are simply not able to bite the skin tissue with them.
They will not be able to pinch her in any noticeable way. These creatures are so scanty that any of their mechanical impact 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.
Plus, dust mites can only digest bits of dead epidermis. Live skin is not food for them. In scale and biological proportions, the bite of a tick can be compared to how if a person wants to bite on the thigh of a boar 100 times larger in size. First, the materi altoo rough - not for human teeth, and secondly, the surface tissue of the boar thigh will not go into food.
But some may protest that we have all seen what dust mite bites look like, where do they come from if the mites don't bite?
What is a dust mite bite?
Dust mite bites are commonly referred to as redness that appears in places where human skin has been exposed to the enzymes they secrete, with which the feces of microscopic insects are soaked. Each tick can “go to the toilet in a big way” 20 times a day, so on the scale of a double bed it will be a real disaster for a person in whom this enzyme can cause an allergic reaction.
Usually people have strong immunity to this substance. But exceptions do exist. In addition, there are many varieties of dust mites themselves, and it is possible that the feces of some variety may “not suit” some person.
Who is most concerned about dust mites?
Tick-borne sensitization most often affects people with asthma and children. If a child for no reason suddenly starts to cough and develops a runny nose, and there are no outbreaks of diseases around, most likely the reason is the reaction of the baby's body to the presence of too many dust mites in the home.
Also, the symptoms of an allergy in children to a dust mite are pronounced redness on the skin of a child (dermatitis) that comes from nowhere. You should not be afraid of such irritations, since modern medicine has easily learned to cope with such allergic manifestations. The photo with the bites of dust mites on the human body looks rather unpleasant.
If you notice such irritation on your child's skin, it means that the number of insects has exceeded all permissible limits and it's time to start cleaning your home in earnest, arranging a real Armageddon for uninvited roommates.
Destruction measures
In a specialized store you can find a wide variety of products that can help get rid of ticks that have multiplied in your home. In most cases, these products are sprays that are completely safe for humans, but at the same time, deadly for hated insects.
They should handle mattresses, pillows and blankets. Removed bed linen, so that all the creatures that nest in it can rest, can be soaked in hot water. The most comfortable temperature for these insects is 15-25 °C. Frost or heat is deadly for them.
For the treatment of carpets and rugs, special cleaning products are available in the form of concentrated shampoos. If you wipe floors and other surfaces with a solution of such a product, as well as clean carpets, all the pests that inhabit them will certainly go to the next world.
Be that as it may, no remedy will help to get rid of dust mites 100%. But reducing the insect population to a safe minimum is within human power.
Prevention
To prevent pests from breeding again, elementary preventive measures should be observed. Here is a list of actions to help keep the dust mite population under control:
- Weekly general wet cleaning should be carried out in each residential area. If you don’t want to spend money on special products, you can splash a little vinegar essence into a basin or bucket of water. The smell will go away in an hour, but the creatures will die with even greater intensity.
- All upholstered furniture must be thoroughly vacuumed. The minus of ticks is their light weight and sluggishness. They do not scatter from the vacuum cleaner like rats. Moreover, due to their underdeveloped mind, they will not at all understand how such a cruel relocation to the landfill befell them. They nest mainly in the upper layers of the material of upholstered furniture, since there is no food for them inside the upholstery. Therefore, more of their "personnel" will definitely be collected by a vacuum cleaner.
- In the summer, take out pillows, blankets and mattresses to dry in the sun. Not only that, insects will die from excessive overheating, but ultraviolet itself is also destructive for them. In a few hours of such a "sunbath", your bedding will get rid of the lion's share of the total number of mites nesting in them.
- In winter, in sunny frosty weather, the laundry you take out into the fresh air will completely be freed from all ticks to the last. If the sun could not penetrate inside a down or feather pillow in the summer, then the frost will certainly break through it togrounds.
It should not be forgotten that the less stale things, carpet and other products, small parts, hard-to-reach cracks and old household appliances in the apartment, the smaller the number of nurseries you will have, producing new hordes of ticks. Get rid of everything superfluous, and you will, without a doubt, breathe easier, and this was said in the truest sense of the word.
Conclusion
From the above, it is clear that no matter how dust mites look in the photo, they are not dangerous in themselves. By and large, these are miserable creatures that can only eat and excrete their waste products. The danger to people is only their enzymes, produced by them along with feces. And even then only in cases where the concentration of insects exceeds all conceivable limits. But simple preventive measures, together with special sprays, will definitely help eliminate this problem.
