The dust mite is a subclass of spiders that is too small to be seen with the naked eye. It doesn’t bite people and it’s not poisonous or harmful per sé.
Because they’re so small, it takes a special kind of filter on your vacuum cleaner to pick them up and trap them. These are called HEPA filters and they’re your first line of defense against dust mites.
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What Are Dust Mites?
Dust mites are too small to see to see with the naked eye, making it impossible for anyone to claim they’ve seen dust mites in their house.
They aren’t insects in the ordinary sense of the word. They have eight legs, which makes them arthropods in the spider family.
Dust mites are less than 0.5mm long, which is why they can’t be seen. They have an oval shaped, white body.
They’re so lightweight thousands of them can be found in a single gram of ordinary house dust. For comparison, a paperclip weighs about a gram.
Dust mites go through five life stages in their life: egg, larva, protonymph, tritonymph, and adult. Between each stage, they molt and shed their skin.
Under optimal conditions, dust mites can grow from an egg to an adult within a month, then live about one to two months after that. Females lay around 50 eggs before they die.
Dust mites prefer an environment of 75-80ºF and 70-80% humidity. They don’t drink water. They get their water from the humidity in the air.
If the humidity drops below 60%, these arachnids get dehydrated and die. This explains why hot dry dusty places like Arizona and Nevada don’t have dust mites.
Cold dry places are equally hostile to dust mites. Cold temperatures and low humidity are kryptonite to these microscopic critters.
Dust mites like to live in fabrics where they can bury down inside it to live. They don’t actually bite humans. Instead, these arachnids live on dead skin from birds, animals, and people – which covers pretty much their entire diet.
It’s been estimated that you shed enough skin every day to feed a million dust mites! Wherever we unconsciously leave these flakes of skin on our beds and furniture, dust mite populations flourish.
Although dust mites don’t bite people, their feces can become airborne and trigger allergic reactions in sensitive people. The reactions can be respiratory problems like asthma and skin problems such as red, itchy rashes.
Other allergic reactions would include itchy eyes, sneezing, runny nose, cough, and nasal congestion. It can seem like a never-ending cold.
How to Prevent Dust Mites?
There are a number of things you can do to cut down on dust mites. The first and most effective thing you can do is to lower the temperature and humidity in your house.
- If you can leave the house for a few days, set the thermostat to 65ºF or less and put dehumidifiers in every room, or as many as you can afford. One day at minimum, and two days at most, of this treatment, will definitely have these dust mites paying with their numbers.
- This doesn’t prevent the dust mites from coming back of course, but it will give you some relief for a few days. During those days, you can begin a regime that, if continued henceforth, will get rid of dust mites and keep the critters under control.
- Do all your washing in hot water (130ºF or higher) and dry them on the highest heat setting your dryer has. If you have stuffed toys, throw pillows, or other items that can’t be washed put them in plastic and put them in the freezer for 24 hours.
- The plastic is to protect your things from the so called freezer burn. The icy temperatures in the freezer will kill the dust mites along with their eggs. Take the toys or pillows outside and shake them to get all the mites and eggs out of them. Consider using dust mite covers for pillows once they are out of the freezer.
- The best strategy you can use on a consistent basis to keep dust mites out is employing the efficiency of a HEPA vacuum cleaner in cleaning all your mattresses, furniture, drapes, and carpets.
Read more: Click here to learn more about getting rid of pests in your bedroom.
Are HEPA Vacuums Effective Against Dust Mites?
Short answer: YOU BETCHA!!!
The long answer though depends on how thorough you were on our original instructions for plunging your house into the deep freeze state. Vacuums by themselves won’t stop dust mites.
Vacuum cleaners can keep dust mites down to a dull roar and give you some relief. However, the arachnid’s life cycle is just too fast to eliminate the entire population completely with vacuuming alone.
Unless you live in the desert, you’re going to have dust mites. And that’s just the harsh fact of life. No matter how often you vacuum, there will always be more of them invading your house and keeping up with them will be a never-ending battle. But if you do the deep freeze trick first, keeping them out after that with the HEPA vacuums will finish the job. You’ll be able to stay on top of them and give your nose and allergies a break.
5 Best Dust Mite Vacuums
As a quick recap, below are the five dust mite vacuums we looked at.
- Shark Rotator (an upright vacuum that transforms three different ways)
- LivePure Ultramite Vacuum
- Raycop Lite UV Sanitizing Vacuum (a sanitizing and allergen removing vacuum)
- EyeVac Stationary Vacuum
- Eureka Mighty Mite
Our #1 pick goes to the Shark Rotator. Also make sure to have a look at the LivePure Ultramite Vacuum as this handheld machine is the perfect complement for vacuuming the mattresses in the house.
Shark Rotator
This is an upright bagless vacuum cleaner for both carpets and hard floors. It easily transforms into a lift-away hand-carried vacuum for doing stairs, drapes, and under couches and chairs.
This actually works the way it shows in Shark’s advertisements and infomercials. The Shark Rotator has tremendous suction power. Nothing gets away from it. The HEPA filtration works to trap and catch 99.99% of all dust and allergens as small as 0.3 micrometers. It’s a complete seal, nothing escapes.
The filters have to be washed more frequently than we’d like, but that’s the only fly in the ointment. And emptying the canister is a snap. The vacuum opens from the top and the bottom. When done, simply open the bottom, and everything falls right out into the trash. It’s a sweet setup.
The LED headlights illuminate dog and cat hair for easy visibility as well as letting you see what you’re doing under furniture. The extra-long cord gives you a lot of freedom of movement, and it has a very nice array of attachments for crevices, fans, furniture tops, and drapes. It twists and turns effortlessly to get everywhere, and cleans hard floors and carpets equally well.
LivePure Ultramite Vacuum
This handheld vacuum by LivePure cleans deep into bedding and other household fabrics. Its strong suction power lifts dust mites, pet dander, and other allegations from these areas:
- Mattresses
- Bedding
- Clothing
- Furniture
- Curtains
This powerful little vacuum uses the latest technology to remove dust mites, pollen, and other allergens from your home. The rolling brush shakes loose those particles in the fabric that cause allergies and asthma symptoms. Then the built-in UV light eliminates dust mites and helps reduce E Coli, staph, and salmonella. Finally, the HEPA filtration system traps the particles within 0.3 microns. These include:
- Dust mite debris
- Pet dander
- Pollen
- Smoke
- Mold spores
The LivePure Ultramite Vacuum comes with an extension hose for tight places. In addition, it’s EPA-registered and backed up by a limited, 2-year warranty.
Raycop Lite UV HEPA Vacuum
A unique entry in this list, Raycop Lite uses its powerful UV lamp to help eliminate at least 99% of bacteria apart from effectively removing dust mite matters, pollens, and other types of allergens through its patented RayClean Tech.
Raycop Lite is equipped with not just any kind of UV Lamp. The bulb is powerful enough to trim down the survival rates of E-Coli and Staphylococcus bacteria to a close 0%. And all it takes is just 2 seconds of exposure.
Stubborn dust mite matter is not a problem if you’re using Raycop Lite. This vacuum is geared with pulsating pads that can vibrate up to 5,000 times in a single minute. This vibration is powerful enough to effectively loosen up everything you want to eliminate – from household dirt to dust mite matter.
EyeVac Stationary Vacuum
The EyeVac Stationary Vacuum removes dust and dirt while returning clean air to your home. It’s perfect for your kitchen, walkway, or playroom. It can pick up almost anything, including:
- Dust
- Dirt
- Sand
- Pet hair
- Debris
Now you don’t have to bend over to pick up that last bit of dirt from your hard floor. Just sweep it into the EyeVac Stationary Vacuum, and you’re done. There are no bags or dirty filters to replace, and it empties with one easy pull.
The EyeVac is automatically activated when you sweep next to it. However, it’s safe to use around children and pets, and it comes with a full 90-day replacement warranty.
Eureka Mighty Mite Vacuum
Eureka is a well-known name with an excellent reputation.
At just under 12 pounds, this vacuum cleaner does an excellent job of picking up dust and fine particles. It has a HEPA filter but it’s separate from the bags. Yes, this machine requires vacuum cleaner bags.
This is a real disappointment.
The HEPA filter catches what the bag doesn’t but having to throw away bags (and buy new ones) plus clean the filter seems like a step too many for the purpose of getting rid of dust mites.
This vacuum has tremendous suction but it diminishes quickly as the bags fill up, requiring you to change them fairly often to maintain suction.
The hose feels somewhat flimsy but it helps hold down the price so that’s the trade-off Eureka has decided to make in this case.
The attachments that come with it aren’t the quality you’d expect and you have to purchase additional “upgraded” attachments to get what should have come in the box in the first place.
The HEPA filter has so many leaks around it there is virtually no reason for having it. For ordinary cleaning, this wouldn’t be a problem (other than paying for something you didn’t really get) but when you’re dealing with dust mites, any amount of leaking is too much.
