Suffering from headaches on a regular basis? Exhibiting allergy symptoms even during the winter? A general sense of tiredness almost verging on fatigue a regular part of your life now? The cause of all these unexpected and apparently unexplained health concerns may be traced to the quality of air in your house. Indoor pollution may not make itself known quite as explicitly as outdoor pollution, but it can potentially impact your health even more dramatically. After all, a polluted environment in the outdoors is more diluted and dissipated than a polluted environment trapped within an enclosed location like a house. Do you know where the sources of indoor environmental pollution are located? Trick question: in most homes, the answer is pretty much every room.
Any Room Receiving Heating or Cooling
Ever take a look at the filter for your central heating and cooling system after forgetting to change it every month? Pretty disgusting stuff, isn’t it? Depending on individual circumstances, it could actually take less than a month to make it impossible to see through to the actual construction of the filter as a result of all the dust particles that have accumulated. Now try to imagine what your lungs would like if your filters were allowed to get so clogged up that they essentially failed to filter out particles for as long as you continue using the dirty filter.
Bedroom
Most people will probably never an active approach to controlling the indoor pollution of their homes that arises as a result of not cleaning sheets, blankets, rugs, carpeting and furniture fabric as often as they probably should. For some, this active engagement with controlling the quality of indoor air only arises as a result of battling fleas, scabies, bedbugs or some other tiny little critter feeding on their skin. You can go a long way toward avoiding the misery that comes with getting rid of fleas, stopping the incessant itching of scabies and dealing with the comprehensively disgusting aspect of bedbugs by making sure to regularly change bed linens, vacuuming rugs and carpets and keeping the fabric of your furnishing clean.
Bathroom
Be honest: how often do you clean the toilet? If you thought to yourself “only when company is coming over” you can relax because you are probably not alone. Make fun of those obsessive-compulsive toilet cleaners all you want, but they are likely having the laugh last because the quality of air inside their homes is at least slightly safer. It should be a no-brainer, of course, but toilets are haven for bacteria. Yes, flushing gets rid of a whole bunch of that bacterial onslaught against the quality of indoor air, but it can accomplish only so much. Start improving the quality of your home’s air by closing the toilet every time you flush. The lid will help obstruct the spread of airborne bacteria. Then commit to regular cleaning at least once a week and deep cleaning of the toilet at least once a month.
Potentially Every Room of Your House Including Attics, Basements and Garages
Did you ever have to dissect a frog in science class in high school? Remember that disgusting smell that permeated the biology lab when you twisted the cap off the jar in which the frog floated in liquid? That was likely the smell of formaldehyde and try to imagine, if you will, living in a home in which every quite possibly every room contains an open jar of that liquid. Would you agree to live in such a home? Better say yes, because chances are pretty god that the air quality of your home is being polluted by formaldehyde. And don’t think that just because you can’t smell the formaldehyde in your house it means you don’t have to worry about it. Particle wood, insulation, paneling, press fabrics, adhesive, cosmetics, disinfectants and that’s just for starters .
Kitchen and Bathroom and Laundry
Harsh chemicals used for cleaning clogged drains, bleach, detergents and, well, pretty much any chemical-based cleaning product in the home is releasing noxious and toxic particles into the air you breathe inside your home every day. The more chemical products you depend upon, the more pollution you must deal with inside the home . Heck, even the air freshener that you use to deal with the more obvious chemical odors in the house can be the source of indoor air pollution .
