Is your house making you sick? Does your throat feel itchy whenever you’re home? Or do you suffer from headaches and dizziness as soon as you come back from work? If that’s the case, you might be experiencing something called a sick building syndrome. It is basically a condition caused by things that can make you sick inside your home or building. This includes poor air quality and the presence of mould and fungus among others.
So, if you are asking yourself can your house make you sick, the answer is yes it can.
For households with kids, the situation can be even worse as children are usually more vulnerable to diseases and infections than adults. Not to mention, most of us even fail to realize that there are certain surprising things that can make you sick in your house. While some of these problems can come with the home, such as leaky pipes or air pollution in the area, a lot of things making you feel sick inside your home can be easily fixed.
If you want to make your home a healthy place for yourself and your family, you first need to identify what could be causing your harm by exposing you to a plethora of potential illnesses.
Things inside Your Home that Might be Making You Sick
Here are a few common household items making you sick
- Scissors or can openers
- Kitchen sponges
- Vacuum cleaners
- Makeup brushes
- Remote control
- Showerhead
- Perfumes and air fresheners
- Cleaning supplies
- Faulty plumbing
- Stuffed toys and carpets
Let’s take a look at how these items can be making you sick inside your own home.
Scissors or can openers
Unhygienic kitchen tools are some of the main things inside your home that might be making you sick.
Although most of us thoroughly wash our cutlery and cooking utensils on a regular basis, we rarely pay much attention to tools such as can openers and kitchen scissors. We use can openers to open canned food items while scissors are used for a variety of purposes ranging from opening packets of spices to cutting raw vegetables of meat.
The thing is that unless you dutifully scrub these tools after every use, they are most probably filled with germs that can make you feel sick. In fact, the bacteria from these objects can even cause food poisoning.
Therefore, if you want to avoid spreading germs in your kitchen, make sure to wash and scrub your scissors and can openers on a regular basis.
Kitchen sponges
Regardless of how clean and spotless your kitchen looks, it can still be extremely dirty.
Just like can openers and scissors, kitchen sponges are also rarely cleaned or sanitized. If you’re thinking about why anyone should clean something that is already soaked in soap and water, well, you have no idea how many germs these sponges spread when they touch other dishes. This is one of the leading reasons you could be feeling sick lately.
In order to properly clean a sponge, you need to wash it under running water. Then rinse it well before letting it air dry. Every once in a while, you can also let it soak in an oxygen bleach solution or microwave it for 30 seconds to kill the bacteria that might be growing on it. Also, don’t forget to swap your kitchen sponges every three to four weeks depending on your usage.
Vacuum cleaner
Vacuums are supposed to clean your home. But ironically, they could be the biggest culprit in making you feel sick by spreading germs and toxins in the air. To put it simply, these machines can be making the indoor air dirtier and harmful to breathe, causing a number of respiratory diseases.
This mostly happens because of two reasons: either your vacuum is really old and has worn out filters or you don’t clean its filters and empty its bag on a regular basis. When you use vacuum cleaners on carpets on cushioned surfaces, it also takes up the dust mites, spores and bacteria among other things. However, old and unclean filters can let these bacteria out in the air again. If inhaled, they cannot cause severe allergic reactions but also expose you to serious illnesses.
Apart from vacuum cleaners, there are other things inside your home that might be making you sick by worsening your allergies. If you feel that might be the case, take a look at some simple yet effective ways to allergy-proof your home.
Makeup brushes
Your makeup brushes can be a breeding ground for bacteria and since they frequently touch your eyes and face, you can also be at risk of developing a serious skin infection without even realizing.
Unless you wash your makeup brushes with mild soap and lukewarm water on a regular basis, these tools can be harbouring germs, oil, dead skin cells and much more. If you often suffer from breakouts, this could be one of the reasons why.
So, if you want to get rid of things inside your home that might be making you sick, make sure to clean and sanitize these brushes every few weeks. In addition to that, don’t let others use your makeup tools on their face, as it can make the matter even worse.
Remote control
Do you like munching on snacks while watching your favourite show on the TV? If so, you are in for a bad surprise.
Remote controls are among the most important household items people usually forget to clean. This can have disastrous consequences as it is one of the top things inside your home that can make you feel sick.
Unless you live alone, a lot of people in your home must touch the remote control on a regular basis – including when they are sick. Now, your remote control could be filled with all kinds of bacteria, which you might inadvertently inhale every single time you change the channel during dinner.
The best way to sanitize a remote control is to wipe it off with an anti-bacterial wipe at least once a week. The same goes for smartphones, laptop keyboards, headphones and door handles, which are some of the other things inside your home that could be making you feel sick.
Showerhead
Apart from the kitchens, bathrooms are perhaps the most regularly cleaned parts of the house. However, even though you might be paying extra attention to clean the bathroom floor, toilet and sink, you may be ignoring a major object that can be making you feel sick: the shower.
Although you may not be able to see it, showerheads are filled with limescale, microscopic bacteria and other debris. Moreover, they are also an ideal place for mould and fungi to grow, which can lead to a host of diseases. It is also one of the most common things that cause allergy.
Some of the symptoms of getting sick from mould include coughing, wheezing, itchy eyes and a stuffy nose among others.
The easiest way to fix this problem and avoid getting sick is to clean your showerhead with a scrub sponge. Then flush out all the toxins with a solution of equal parts white vinegar and water.
Air Freshener and perfumes
Who doesn’t want themselves and their home to smell clean and fresh all the time? But did you know these scented products can also be among the things inside your home that might be making you sick?
Let’s start with air fresheners. These products contain volatile organic compounds (VOC) comprising potentially dangerous chemical, which can gradually lead to severe lung infections and other respiratory diseases. There are also particularly harmful to children. Moreover, VOCs can induce nausea, digestive problems, dizziness, nervous system problems, breathing problems and a number of allergic reactions.
It’s important to mention VOCs are also present in new carpets, paint and wood flooring.
Similarly, perfumes contain hundreds of chemicals, which can be just as harmful.
Cleaning Supplies
This one is a no-brainer.
Just like air fresheners, cleaning supplies are also made up of a mixture of dangerous chemicals which may clean your house on the surface but harm the environment affecting your overall health. You can also develop skin infections and breathing problems from these chemical products.
Instead of using aerosol sprays, pesticides and disinfectants, you should opt for natural cleaning products such as vinegar, which will make your bathroom sparkle and remove stubborn fabric stains without any adverse effects. Similarly, baking soda is also an extraordinary cleaning agent that can be used for a variety of purposes. This includes cleaning your furniture, freshening up your wardrobe and much more.
Faulty plumbing
Mould needs moisture to grow and faulty plumbing provides an excellent opportunity for that.
Apart from causing visible water damage in the form of stained floors and walls, leaking pipes can cause mould and fungi to grow behind the walls, causing a severe allergic reaction among those living in the house. If you have lately been suffering from stuffy nose and itchy eyes, your house probably has mould growth.
Not to mention, standing water can be the breeding ground for germs and bacteria, which is yet another thing inside your house that can be making you sick. Therefore, it’s important to fix leaking pipes and tighten loose valves as soon as you spot them. In case the job seems too big to be done via the DIY-route, immediately call the plumber.
Stuffed toys and carpets
Wall-to-wall carpets might make your home look and feel luxurious, but they are usually a hotbed for bacteria, spores, dust mites which feed on dead human skin and pet dander. These things, which settle into the fabric and can be really hard to get rid of unless you deep clean your home, can easily make you fall ill.
Since it might not be feasible for everyone to remove carpets from their homes, the least they can do is clean it regularly. The same goes for stuffed toys. Though they might look really pretty, they could be putting your child’s health at risk by harbouring harmful bacteria and germs.
If you’re still struggling to figure out how to tackle this problem, here is a comprehensive guide on how to deep clean your home that will surely help you out.
For more information on how to clean your home and stay healthy, don’t forget to visit Zameen Blog – your top source for solutions to all lifestyle-related problems.
