It’s been one of the worst years on record for allergy sufferers. In our neighbourhood there’s so much pollen that as puddles dry, a yellow ring of pollen marks where they once were. A third of Kiwis experience hay fever allergies in some form, but this year even people that don’t usually suffer from allergies are experiencing itchy noses and eyes. Worse, pollen can continue to aggravate allergy sufferers long after the trees have stopped flowering. Pollen works by floating through the air and sticking to the flowers of other plants, but what makes it stick to birds and bees also makes it pretty good at sticking to your clothes, shoes, the dog and anything else that goes outside – not to mention simply drifting in through the window. And once they’re indoors, there are so many more soft surfaces to stick to. It’s true, your house can act like a giant pollen collector, but we’ve got a few solutions to help you breathe easier without cutting down the neighbour’s birch.
Pollen through a Microscope
First, a little background. When plants flower, they spread pollen – it’s part of their reproductive process. Pollen looks like a fine dust from a distance, but up close each microscopic grain is like a sticky little blowfish. It’s these grains that get into our noses and cause trouble.
While this shape works really well for grasses and birch trees, it also means that pollen’s sticky grains quickly become trapped in carpets, upholstery and curtains, where they cause runny noses and itch eyes long after the plants have stopped flowering. Most home vacuums don’t remove pollen because they simply don’t have enough suction – and being a dry action vacuum they aren’t able to “unstick” those millions of little grains from the carpet. And unfortunately, any pollens they do manage to unstick, get blown right back into the air you breathe.
Busy Bees professional carpet cleaners have top quality equipment, which deliver far more suction than even top of the range home vacuums and our professional operators take their time to make sure every corner of your carpet has been suctioned clean. Our team also clean lounge suites, upholstery, even mattresses – so all the soft surfaces you come into contact with can be free of allergens.
Now is the ideal time of the year to get your carpets and upholstery professionally cleaned, because not only will it get out the sticky pollen that has accumulated in spring, we can remove any mould and associated odour that have built up after a damp New Zealand winter.
Removing pollens, dust and dander is just part of our normal carpet cleaning service, and is included with each cleaning. If you’re an allergy sufferer, don’t take another antihistamine until you drop us a line.
