**Beware of Dust Mites**

Quietly lurking within our mattresses, under our beds, and inside sofas and carpets are creatures too small to be seen without a microscope. Dust mites are arthropods closely related to spiders, scorpions, and ticks. They feed on the dead skin cells regularly shed by humans and their animal pets. The average human sheds about 10 grams of dead skin a week. Cats and dogs create even more dander for dust mites to eat. The mites also eat pollen, fungi, and bacteria. They do not drink water but absorb it from the air.

Dust mites do not carry diseases and are harmless to most people. It’s their bathroom habits that make some of us itch and sneeze. Many people develop severe allergies to dust mite feces (wastes). If you lie on a rug where dust mites live, you might develop itchy red bumps on your skin. Breathe in dust containing their feces and you might have more serious symptoms, such as difficulty breathing or a severe asthma attack.

Dust mites thrive in warm, humid environments — eating and nesting in dust-collecting bedding, fabric, and carpet. Think about this! A typical mattress can contain anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million dust mites. Nearly 100,000 dust mites can live in one square yard of carpet.

During a process called sensitization, a person’s immune system mistakenly identifies the inhaled dust mite waste as an invader. The next time the person is exposed to the dust mite waste, the immune system launches an allergic reaction.

An allergic reaction occurs when the immune system:

1. Does not respond to pathogens
2. Maintains homeostasis
3. Responds to usually harmless environmental substances
4. Undergoes rapid, uncontrolled cell division