All Rileyed Up

Today, I am sick.

I’ve lived most of my life without allergies, but this past year has been one big long sneeze. Is it something in the air? Based on some things I’ve been reading, many signs point to yes.

According to Dr. Neil Schachter on the 3M Filtrete website, these are ways to make the air in my home as clean as can be:

1. Avoid cleaning products with ammonia and chlorine – check. Although perhaps yesterday’s swimming excursion wasn’t a good idea after all.

2. Houseplants… a clean air ally – I suspect my fake plants don’t count.

3. Lay area rugs instead of wall-to-wall carpeting – Now this one I am good with. No carpeted surfaces on the house. Did wonders for The Boy’s skin.

4. Restrict your furry friends – the dogs were finally banished to dog beds on the floor, but their shedding hair certainly doesn’t help.

5. Turn up the air conditioning (reduces humidity) and turn off the humidifier – Um, no AC. But it’s not too humid here, so I guess it’s all good. Oddly, I grew up in a very humid climate, and it never gave me allergies.

6. Leave shoes outside – Oh, I am so bad at this one. It’s terrible. I’d love to be one of those people who maintain a socks-only house, but find it pretty darn difficult and somewhat inconvenient, not to mention there’s nothing I can do to stop the dogs, who are the worst dirt-dragger-inners of all…

7. Use high performance air filters – seeing as this information is coming from the 3M Filtrete website, they recommend the Filtrete 1” Advanced Allergen Filter from 3M – and why shouldn’t they? It reportedly captures particles such as pollen, smoke, dust mite debris and pet dander from the air that passes through the filter.

Here’s something else that’s pretty neat at the 3M site. They have a Clean Air Club and you can test your knowledge of indoor air quality with the Clean Air Fact or Fiction test. Did you know that bamboo is considered a natural air filter? I never knew that, but it makes me want to buy a lot of bamboo for my house. Okay, well good luck with getting your air cleaned up and please, wish me the same with mine. Ah… ah… AH-CHOO!

*This post brought to you by MomCentral.