Allergy help?

[kuietgrl (got lost)]

I have a question for anyone that has allergies to animals...what can you do to make it livable? We're tearing out the carpet in our living room, dining room, halls and bedrooms this weekend. I have leather furniture. Is there anything else I can do or any tricks to help reduce allergens? And getting rid of my zoo is NOT an option! lol

[A*lil*Loopy]

My husband has allergies to all 11 of our animals.

We have two large air cleaners (hepa) in our house. One is in the livingroom, the other is in the bedroom which we keep closed during the day to cut down on pet hair on the bed. We use sticky rollers on the bed because two pugs and two cats sleep with us.

My husband takes a Reactine pill every night and has started to wear those Breathe Right nasal strips, which work pretty good.
We also have no carpet in our house. But any vacuums should have a hepa filter as well to suck up the pet extras.
Every chance we can, we open the windows weather permitting.

We've recently bought humidifiers so that we breathe easier and our skin isn't as dry.

Once the carpets are gone, you will notice a huge difference in the air quality. But you may want to place little carpets where you stand a lot, like in front of the sink so that your feet don't get sore. We've noticed that without that extra cushion of carpet, our feet bother us a bit.

[kuietgrl (got lost)]

I never even thought of the air cleaners lol Duh...I'm spacey lately haha My vacuum does have a hepa filter, but there's SO much hair from my little dog and the cat it's unbelievable! And it's everywhere. Plus, I'm sick of steam cleaning the carpets like twice a week, and it not even cleaning or making a difference, so those were on their way out anyway before this issue decided to show up /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif I guess it was fine during the summer because, like you said, windows were always open.

Oh well. Hopefully we can find a cheap air cleaner or something and hopefully taking the carpets out will make a HUGE difference!

[Evangeline]

I bought a honeywell from home depot that works pretty good for about $50, I've noticed a differnce in the amount of dust and hair on the floor since we started using it.

Apparantly that anti allergen febreeze works well, for any soft surfaces you have left.

Using a floor vac, or a dust mop as apposed to just a broom will help too, because it will pick up all the dander the broom blows around.

I also think you will notice a huge difference just removing your carpets.

It's also a good idea to keep your animals out of your bedroom completely if you have allergies.

[A*lil*Loopy]

This is the air purifier that we have, both of them. If you can get them on sale it's worth it. The prefilter just vacuums off and it has an indicator light to let you know when.
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stor...tegoryID=525293 (http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100060599&categoryID=525293)

We keep our bedroom closed and the air purifier on max throughout the day so my husband has a headstart for sleeping. Otherwise we keep it on low.
When we aren't home, we leave the other one on max as well, it really sucks the hair and dust right out of the air.

ps: wash your curtains, they hold a lot of dander.

[kitca]

taking the rugs out helped. also not letting the cats in the bedroom anymore. though teddy sleeps in the bed with us, hubby doesnt really like it, but since hes a terripoo he doesnt really shed. hubby just doesnt ever pet the cats, and i had to promise not to get anymore. we have gone from 6 down to our last 2. one is 17 the other 19 years. he seems to suffer the most with it in the spring and fall, but it isnt too bad summer and winter. right now its been acting up.

[kuietgrl (got lost)]

Well, my Chi lives in our bedroom because he doesn't like the Danes but he can't get on our bed, so that helps. My cat is the one that has always bothered me when I pet him but now I touch any furniture he's been near or if he walks by I sneeze like crazy. And if I touch the Danes, I start sneezing, too. My cat is 17 and on his last legs if he continues to use random places as his litter box lol

I do have one of those floor mops that sweep and clean with just water. I guess I should invest in an air purifier.