House Dust Mites

House dust mites are a pest you react to rather than see. They are not visible to the naked eye. Almost nobody arrives at this page because they found one — people arrive because somebody in the house has allergy or asthma symptoms. So, plainly: dust mites are not a problem that conventional insecticide treatment solves. This page is about what does help.

How you know they are the issue

You cannot identify dust mites by looking. There is no insect to find, no bite pattern to read, no damage to the fabric itself. The only signal is how the person in the house reacts.

Whether those symptoms genuinely come from dust mites is a question for a doctor — that is what allergy testing is for. If someone has persistent sneezing, a blocked nose, breathlessness or a skin rash, see a GP first. We do not diagnose; our side of the work is reducing where the allergen sits and how much of it people meet.

Where they are found

In pillows, in blankets and duvets, in soft toys, in fabric-covered furniture. In other words, in the softest and most-handled items in the house. Carpets, rugs, mattresses and heavy curtains belong in the same group.

That list is not accidental. Every item on it is fibrous, thick and awkward to clean properly. The less soft furnishing a bedroom carries, the less surface there is to manage.

What it means for health

Dust mites sit alongside pollen, pet allergens and pests such as mice and cockroaches on the list of indoor allergens that can cause asthma symptoms and allergic reactions.

This is an exposure problem rather than a transmission one, so the target is not hunting an insect down but reducing the amount of allergen in the home and the hours spent in contact with it. Where someone has diagnosed asthma, treatment is a matter for their doctor; the building side of it is exposure.

Why spraying is not the answer

This is the honest part. A residual surface treatment along the skirtings, or a fogging run through the rooms, is the wrong tool. Mites are not on the wall — they are in the pillow, the duvet and the sofa, and no chemical application cleans the textiles that are the source of the problem.

So the weight of mite control falls on three things: humidity, textiles and a routine cleaning cycle. That is what the survey looks at: how much soft furnishing each room carries, where moisture comes from, and how the cleaning routine runs. Where a treatment is warranted it is targeted, and it uses biocidal products licensed by the Turkish Ministry of Health. But most of the result comes from the housekeeping side. Treat any quote that claims otherwise with caution.

What you can do

• Keep indoor relative humidity below 60%, ideally in the 30–50% range.
• Wash sheets, blankets and duvet covers weekly in hot water.
• Fit allergen-proof encasements on mattresses and pillows.
• Vacuum carpets and fabric-covered furniture routinely.
• Dust hard surfaces with a damp cloth — dry dusting just lifts it back into the air.

Include soft toys in that routine. In a child’s bedroom they are the item most often left out.

The itching may be coming from a bird nest

Mites are a broad heading. If there is a bird nest under the eaves, in a roof void or in a vent, itching indoors may be down to bird mites spreading from that nest rather than dust mites. The answer has nothing to do with humidity or bedding: the nest has to be removed, the debris cleared, and the access point proofed so the birds do not settle there again.

If your symptoms started around the time a nest appeared on the building, say so at the survey. It changes where we look entirely.