2380 Skin Bunnies

Recently I was cleaning my house. I believe I've mentioned in an earlier essay about the persistence and annoyance of holiday glitter. My friend Rick jokingly suggested I employ a leaf blower to get rid of it. I jokingly replied that it would be good for the hair balls too. That's when I noticed something. No hairballs.

It led me to an interesting observation. For some reason there is less dust to clean up, in hairball form or otherwise, when fewer people live in your home.

Someone with pets wouldn't notice this. Pets are hairballs in their own right. Or at least hairball factories, what with the dog scratching them off and cats hacking them up. But if you don't have pets, the people factor is more evident.

There were once five people living in my house and granted, three of them were teenagers, with their associated slovenly approach to all things spic and span. But they still didn't track in a whole lot. And the same HVAC system was moving air around the house.

I read an article somewhere that gave me a clue. The average human sheds about a million skin cells in just a single day. 365 million a year. That's cool, you say, cells are really teeny-tiny, so who cares? Well, it adds up. In a year to about 8 pounds of skin cells. 

But no worries, your house is also filled with dust mites who work very hard to eat them up. And of course what they can't fully process they get rid off. Dust mite excrement. 

Bottom line, five people annually create 40 pounds of skin cells and dust mite poo. Hmm. I guess dust bunnies are actually organic. They're made of skin flakes.

I wish dust mites ate glitter.

America, ya gotta love it.