Your home should be your safe place.
However, if it’s not properly maintained or cared for, it could actually be putting your safety at risk, leaving you vulnerable to sickness, infection, and other health complications.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
With that in mind, here are some surprising ways in which your home could be making you sick – and what you should do about it!
Clutter.
While it’s easy for a bit of clutter to accumulate throughout your home during the course of a busy week, you’d be surprised about just how much this can impact your health. For example, studies have found that “clutter can affect our anxiety levels, sleep, and ability to focus.”
As such, if you’re looking to take care of your mental health, it’s important that you declutter your home. The easiest way to approach this task is to simply ensure that you’ve got plenty of storage options available to you while also throwing away or selling things you no longer need or use.
Mold.
There are many different ways in which mold could build up in your home – often without you even realizing it. For example, moisture can enter your property through windows, vents, damaged roofing, and more. Once mold is present within your home, it can lead to a wide range of health issues. For example, it could trigger allergies or lead to respiratory conditions.
As a result, if you’ve noticed any mold within your home, you should reach out to a
mold removal company that can remove it quickly and efficiently. This is often a better approach than trialing out at-home remedies, as these techniques often ‘cover up’ the mold instead of removing it.
Dust.
The build-up of dust and other allergens throughout your home could also leave you more vulnerable to sickness, especially if you have pre-existing respiratory conditions such as asthma. Exposure to dust can also trigger allergy symptoms such as rashes, itchiness, and sneezing. Fortunately, this is a relatively easy issue to tackle, such as by vacuuming and dusting regularly, avoiding the build-up of clutter, and ensuring that you clean every area of your home – including spaces behind furniture.
Poor ventilation.
If your home is poorly ventilated, this could again lead to various health complications. This is because it impacts indoor air quality quite considerably, leaving you once again more vulnerable to sickness, allergies, and respiratory problems. Furthermore, many studies have found that spending time in poorly-ventilated spaces leads to headaches, nausea, and shortness of breath.
As such, if you want to improve your health, you must improve the ventilation within your home. For example, you could simply make sure you open your windows more often to allow a steady stream of air to enter the space, or consider installing ventilation or AC units.
Beyond this, you could work to improve indoor air quality within your home by using plants as decor. Not only will this liven up the space, but various studies have found that the presence of plants improves indoor air quality quite considerably.