Cleaning the house when you have asthma
It can be hard to clean the house when you have allergic asthma. Vacuming kicks up dust, dusting kicks up dust, straightening stuff kicks up dust… Cleaning supplies can exacerbate breathing difficulties, waxing motions can exacerbate shortness of breath… Ugh! Just thinking about cleaning makes me wheeze a little.
My favorite trick for cleaning with allergic asthma is to hire someone who uses all natural cleaning supplies. By having someone clean my house for me once a month, I can ensure that I’m not knee-deep in dander and dust and fumes.
But, if you don’t have the budget for someone to come in and clean your house for you, there are ways to make the job a bit less likely to trigger an asthma attack. Here are some tips:
- Clean frequently. It’s important that you keep dust from building up, so clean at least weekly to keep dander and dust to a minimum.
- Buy a vacuum with a hepa filter. They’re more expensive, but well worth it. Few cleaning chores are as likely to trigger asthma as running the vacuum, so splurge to get the machine that is more likely to be safe. The Dyson always gets good results for just this reason.
- Use vinegar and other all-natural cleaning products. Personally, I find even gentle cleansers to be too much sometimes, but the vinegar doesn’t bother me (though the smell is a little dreadful!). Find what works for you, and stock up on it. Be careful of chemicals that tend to bother most peoples’ breathing (like bleach) and try to limit your exposure to all cleaning supplies. The Green Clean Book has some great recipies.
- Do what works best for you! These tips are all well and good, but cleaning with asthma is all about finding your own comfort zone. You don’t want your house to make you sick, and it’s important that your home is a healthy respit for you… But, you also don’t want to clean so much that you make yourself sick. So, find the right approach for your life.
Cleaning with allergic asthma does pose some challenges. But they don’t have to be insurmountable–with a few easy tips like these you can make cleaning much more do-able!