Your fall décor may lend a bright and cheerful touch to your Marietta, Georgia, home, but it can add some less desirable effects to the house as well. If you’re not careful about your choice of decorations, you may find your allergies acting up just as these items come out. Watch out for these hazards and take steps to keep your home both beautiful and clean.
Inviting Mold
If your fall decorations sit outside or in another damp area, they can become a prime breeding ground for mold. Your Halloween pumpkins may look fresh and charming for a week or so, but in time that ripe gourd will welcome some nasty growths. Fresh autumn flowers placed in water can get moldy as well if not properly maintained.
Mold doesn’t like to stay contained. The spores can become airborne and spread throughout your home via the HVAC system. An air cleaner can help you trap any mold that you don’t clean up in time.
Spreading Dust
Your annual autumn decorations probably stay in storage for most of the year. Those dusty cobwebs may look authentic around Halloween, but they’re going to welcome a lot of dust mites into your home. Make sure your seasonal decorations are clean and dust-free. Change your HVAC filter regularly to keep the dust that you can’t avoid from circulating throughout the home.
Releasing VOCs
Autumnal candles can offer a delicious scent, but that spicy smell isn’t the only thing they’re spreading. Artificial ingredients used in scented candles can release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the air. These irritants can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation. Though not technically an allergic reaction, this is an uncomfortable effect that can be harmful to your health all the same. Choose an unscented candle instead, or scent your home naturally with a clove-studded orange or cinnamon sticks.
If you’re suffering from fall allergies, check your home decorations to make sure they’re not the cause. For extra help cleaning up your air, contact E. Smith Heating & Air Conditioning at 678-369-8866 for indoor air quality solutions that will help you breathe easy.
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