Tips for Reducing Fall Allergens in your Home #HealthierHome

I adore Fall it is hands down my favorite time of year.  I know I have said this before but seriously it is the BEST!  The temperatures cool off, but not too cool. The trees start to show their glorious colors they have worked on all summer long. Football is going strong, not to be out done by football, baseball brings us the World Series.  Another thing that Fall brings that I don’t love at all is Ragweed and other allergens that drive me nuts during the Fall.  My eyes stay itchy and I am constantly sneezing.  It appears as if I have passed this allergy to ragweed onto my daughter whose nose has promptly started running at the first twinge of cool air! As a Filtrete ambassador reducing fall allergens in our home has become my own personal mission.

• Wash your face and hands before bed, if you can take a shower.  Most importantly get any ragweed pollen off of your face! During the night this pollen can spread to your pillow and coverings and have you waking up with itchy eyes.
• Remove your shoes when you enter the home.  Better yet if you can remove your shoes before you come in the house!  Another goal in my home is to have our house shoe free.  Don’t get me wrong I adore shoes but I don’t love the thoughts of what they might track into our home.  And with a baby who spends just as much time crawling around as she does walking the thought of her crawling and then putting her hands in her mouth totally grosses me out.
• Vacuum your air returns on a weekly basis.  I am not sure how but somehow our air return is always dusty.  I can only assume it’s location in a main pathway of your home does not help.  We vacuum about twice a week (silly dog hair) and once a week I give our air return a good once over.  Removing the additional dust allows for the filter and return to do their jobs better. Taking the air filter out and vacuuming around the inside edge of return gets all that extra gunk you don’t even notice!
• Keep windows and doors closed during high pollen times of the year.  This one kills me!  I LOVE sleeping with the windows open on a nice crisp night.  But every time I do this I suffer miserably the next day or two for leaving the windows open.  My eyes are puffy, I cough, drainage I had no clue was possible shows up, it basically just plain sucks.  So part of me being an adult is admitting my years of sleeping with the windows open are far behind me!
• Keep your house Clean!  I’m pretty much the Master of the Obvious by even saying that but it’s the truth.   Regular dusting with the proper cloth will help reduce dust in your home.  We use a Scotch-Brite cleaning cloth.  The microfibers on these clothes help to trap dust instead of just moving it around.  
• Change your Air Filter.  I can’t believe I am actually showing you what one of our dirty air filters looks like, but this is what the air filter of a busy home with a half-toddler baby, 80lb dog, and a new area rug looks like!  Keep in mind I just changed this air filter a few months ago when I shared with you all about getting rid of unpleasant odors in your home.  Replacing your dirty air filter with a Filtrete Ultra Allergen Reduction Filter (MPR 1500) is just one of the ways you can help create a healthier home by capturing large airborne particles like dust, pollen and mold spores from the air passing through the filter. It also attracts and captures microscopic particles that can carry bacteria and viruses.  The last thing we need in our home is a sick baby, or worse a sick husband!  The Filtrete Ultra Allergen Reduction Filter (MPR 1500) is effective at capturing 90% of large airborne particles such as dust, pollen and mold spores from the air passing through the filter.  I don’t know about you but anything that is good enough to capture 90% of the large airborne particles in my home is going to stay on my list!

At Filtrete.com you can sign up to receive reminders of when to change your air filters.  As well as seasonal newsletter full of better living tips and more! You can also follow along with them on Twitter or Facebook.