Household health Staying healthy is as easy as keeping clean

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Household health

Staying healthy is as easy as keeping clean

University Daily Kansan - Lawrence,KS*

By Jeff Briscoe (Contact)

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

http://www.kansan.com/stories/2008/may/01/household_health/?jayplay

spent weeks this past winter living at friends'

houses. He would only go back to his apartment to grab new clothes,

all the while covering his mouth and holding his breath. For months,

the Topeka senior had been coughing and having trouble breathing. He

suspected it was from the clearly visible mold growing in his

bathroom.

College living often presents such health concerns. Experts say the

problems are often of students' own making and can be quickly fixed.

May, author of My House is Killing Me! The Home Guide for

Families with Allergies and Asthma, says living with dust and mold

is a bigger problem than people realize. May specializes in

pinpointing the causes of people's household misery and then

cleaning them up.

" Some people have neurological problems or headaches, or their

sinuses react when they get a headache, " May says. " Few doctors are

clued into the problem. Often, clients clean up the house and get

better. "

Photo by Brenna Hawley

Carpet is the most obvious culprit for containing dust, allergens

and mold that might cause respiratory problems, May says. While thin

carpet is better than thicker, shaggier carpet, both carry residue

from everyone and everything that has lived on them. May suggests

using a steam vapor machine to clean your carpet. The machine

produces pure steam that can wipe away dust and kill anything else

that might be causing problems.

Other likely household sources of mold and allergens are sofas,

chairs and beds. May says he had a client who only needed to get rid

of one piece of furniture to rid himself of a chronic cough that had

been plaguing him.

Paying attention to when you feel sick or congested might help you

zero in on the area of your house that could be causing trouble.

Covering a sofa or bed with a mattress cover for a short while to

see if your symptoms improve can help you figure out if this is the

true culprit. May suggests getting covers from moving companies

first, because they are much cheaper. Then, if the cover helps, you

can spend more money on an expensive one that might work even better.

finally got over his cough, but mold still seems to be

growing in his bathroom. He tried covering up the black spores with

tape, but he doesn't think it has helped much. His apartment doesn't

have central air, only a window unit that doesn't do a good job

moving moisture out of the apartment or circulating air.

May says not having circulating air in a room can be problematic,

noting that window units often don't have good filters that can

clean potential hazardous allergens and mold spores from circulating

back through the room. plans on moving out after this

semester, leaving his mold to someone else.

Besides mold causing you health problems, bacteria can also be

dangerously prevalent in the apartments and dorms of college

students. Bill Picking, professor of biosciences at the University,

says clean living is especially important in communal living areas.

With so many people creating a mess in dorms or apartment complexes,

the amount of food for bacteria to grow on increases.

Picking says we live around bacteria all the time, and only very

little of it is pathogenic, a big word meaning " it's bad for you. "

Staying away from such bacteria means cleaning dishes and not

letting food pile up so bacteria can grow on it.

Still, even if you do have dangerous bacteria growing in your living

area, Picking says direct contact is necessary for illness. Dish

rags used to clean areas where raw meat has touched should be

immediately washed. Picking suggests using bleach and hot water to

ensure you are safe. Rags can pick up bacteria everywhere they touch

and spread it just as easily. Washing your rags frequently can

reduce the risk of spreading nasty bacteria when you think you are

really cleaning.

Perhaps more disgusting, Picking says every time we flush a toilet,

an aerosol of fecal matter gets released into the air, and the

bacteria released can cause diarrhea.

Still, he says, the kitchen is probably more dangerous, because

bacteria has more of a chance of making direct contact with you or

being ingested.

Just because flu season has ended doesn't mean college living has

suddenly become safe again, so stay healthy by staying clean.