Attack the allergens! 14 days to a sneeze free home.

Well, I wrote about pests such as mice and roaches while I was away from home..  Then, I came home to bees, bees, bees!  A swarm has settled in to an area on the outside of our home that neither local bee keepers or exterminators want to touch. I'm still working on a friendly and safe way to urge our visitors to depart.  In the meantime, we should have lovely flowers and tomatoes this year!

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If you are in the battle, as I am, against allergy triggers in your home, you'll want to give your entryway and other door areas a thorough cleaning.  Naturally, as people and, for some of us, animals pass in and out of the doorways of our home, they track in dust, pollen, and other allergy triggers.

One simple way to trap many of these things is to have good quality mats or rugs both outside the door and inside the door.   Vacuum and otherwise clean these mats thoroughly.   This will not only help cut down on allergens in your home, it will help cut down on the amount of sweeping, mopping, vaccuming, and spot cleaning that you have to do in other areas of your home.  Trap the dirt quickly, at the door, before it spreads further into the house.

Otherwise, door areas need the same kind of cleaning that other areas do.  There is a need to dust the walls, ceiling, and doors.

Doorknobs often trap germs, so it's a good idea to give them frequent cleanings as well.

Note:  Some specialists think that one reason why so many of us have allergies today is that we grow up in environments that are so clean that our immune systems don't get needed practice in differentiating between truly harmful germs and substances and things that are not really harmful.  Thus, our systems go to red alert at the wrong times, and gear up to fight harmless pollen.  Still, if you already do have allergies, the best way to cope with them is to avoid the triggers, and that's where extra attention to cleaning comes in handy.

Enjoy!