Creepy crawlies

About the only time I make up my bed is immediately after I launder the linens. That's because I am lazy and almost nobody (other than me) enters my bedroom. But now I have a new justification:

Tiny dust mites, only the largest of which are visible to the naked eye, exist in their hundreds of thousands – if not their millions – between your sheets. They might hide out in your mattress after a night spent eating the dead skin on your face, pillows and sheets, or linger on your duvet throughout the day.

These arachnids (yes, they have eight legs, like spiders) thrive in moist, damp places, and hoover up the dead skin left behind as your cells renew themselves throughout the night.

“Apparently the typical bed contains somewhere between 100,000 and 10,000,000 dust mites,” says Dr Sermed Mezher, a British GP....

...[D]ust mites don’t bite, and they are relatively harmless. But they do proliferate quickly, die off fast and create a lot of debris from their droppings. Those with an allergy to the tiny creatures can see their health derailed by this build-up: dry eyes, sneezing, coughing, wheezing and fatigue are all telltale signs that you might be allergic to dust mites. ....

While you can’t eradicate mites totally from your bedroom, it is possible to reduce their presence significantly by airing out your bed, washing your sheets regularly, and making sure that your room is kept at a reasonable temperature. ....

Between washes, against conventional advice, it’s best to leave your bed unmade throughout the day .... Mites thrive in warm, damp environments, so by airing out your bed you’re “allowing your mattress and sheets to respond to the temperature of the room more quickly,” (emphasis added)

Lauren Shirreff, "The creepy crawlies living in my bed – and how I got rid of them," The Telegraph, Dec. 7, 2024.