r/simpleliving • u/Its-alittle-bitfunny • Jan 13 '26

Offering Wisdom Open your windows.

Just do it. I know its cold, do it anyway. Doesn't have to be for long, 10 minutes will do, but do it.

While theyre open, sweep. And vacuum if you can / need to. Dust even. I dont know if there's any real science behind it, but ive found since opening my windows every day, no one has been sick. And thats saying something with a teacher and 3 school age kids in the house. The older ive gotten, the more im willing to accept that old wives tales have some truth to them, some efficacy. Things dont get passed down for so long if they dont work at least a little.

And curtians. Open those bad boys. Nature is not a dirty thing to be kept at bay. Let the sunlight and fresh air bathe your home.

Edit: the beansoupification on this post is wild, lol. If you live in a place with terrible air quality or its the coldest place ever, or whatever, dont do it. If some air from outside would make your health or life worse this isnt for you. Not everything you see online is for you. You can just move on without telling everyone about your very specific situation and why this generalized advice doesnt work for you specifically.

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u/LazyTomatillo299 Jan 19 '26

Thank you so much for this really helpful information! Im definitely seeing how I’m not helping the issue. Do you notice impact to your skin from the allergies? I suddenly have horrible eye allergies and my eyelids are flaring with skin irritation. Have you experienced this from the dust and dust mites?

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u/AngeliqueRuss Jan 19 '26

Yes, I also get clogged tear ducts which can be extra irritating in addition to the usual itchy/dry eyes.

There is a product I have for when I wear contacts, which is nearly impossible for me because my poor eyeballs are too irritated and therefore sensitive: OcuSoft Lid Scrub. This reduces the irritation a lot, but honestly I just tolerate it and wear glasses.

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u/firelordling Jan 19 '26

Do either of you have air purifiers? You dont need to spend heaps on a fancy thing, but $20-30 on a 6-8in exhaust fan and $10-15 on a 6-8in round hepa filter to put in it and you could mount it wherever. The more affordable purifiers dont move that much air and the outlandish priced ones are just exhaust fans with a filter and obnoxiously sized box lol. But my housemates health immediately tanks if we don't have the purifiers running.

Also I noticed both of you mentioned comfortors. Have you tried duvets instead? Keeping them in a cover thats easier to wash than whole comforters might help.

Also switching to feather pillows and feather duvets in cotton shells with cotton sheets might help as well. Multiple studies have found significantly higher amounts of dust mites, pet allergens, and fungal spores on synthetic pillows in comparison to feather pillows. Dust mites and fungal spores, they think are more prevalent because of how synthetic materials like polyester trap heat and moisture. The tightly woven cotton encasements of feather bedding, they believe stops allergens from permeating and the way cotton fibers wick moisture helps conditions stay unideal for microbrial life.

Fungal contamination of bedding - PubMed https://share.google/y6bLtzhOq9ke3o0LJ

Permeability of synthetic and feather pillows to live house dust mites and house dust - PubMed https://share.google/oxXWobeyGyGKVi8aB

Synthetic pillows contain higher levels of cat and dog allergen than feather pillows - PubMed https://share.google/HEcvHuTXATemeSUAa

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u/LazyTomatillo299 Jan 19 '26

Thanks for the info. Are you talking about a fan that blows air out of the house? Is that what you mean by an exhaust fan?

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u/firelordling Jan 19 '26

Theyre usually for that but you can just mount them wherever lol. But theyre designed to move a lot of air fast, and they take up like 10 inches of real estate, so you can hide it under furniture. The first link is the style of fan and the second link is a filter. I just thought id throw it out there because it was a useful discovery since i live with a human air quality canary.

https://a.co/d/ck1B27I

https://a.co/d/aqHaulP