Michael Sanders spent weeks this past winter living at friends’ houses. He would only go back to his apartment to grab new clothes, all the while covering his mouth and holding his breath. For months, the Topeka senior had been coughing and having trouble breathing. He suspected it was from the clearly visible mold growing in his bathroom.

College living often presents such health concerns. Experts say the problems are often of students’ own making and can be quickly fixed. Jeffrey May, author of My House is Killing Me! The Home Guide for Families with Allergies and Asthma, says living with dust and mold is a bigger problem than people realize. May specializes in pinpointing the causes of people’s household misery and then cleaning them up.

“Some people have neurological problems or headaches, or their sinuses react when they get a headache,” May says. “Few doctors are clued into the problem. Often, clients clean up the house and get better.”

Carpet is the most obvious culprit for containing dust, allergens and mold that might cause respiratory problems, May says. While thin carpet is better than thicker, shaggier carpet, both carry residue from everyone and everything that has lived on them. May suggests using a steam vapor machine to clean your carpet. The machine produces pure steam that can wipe away dust and kill anything else that might be causing problems.

Other likely household sources of mold and allergens are sofas, chairs and beds. May says he had a client who only needed to get rid of one piece of furniture to rid himself of a chronic cough that had been plaguing him.

Paying attention to when you feel sick or congested might help you zero in on the area of your house that could be causing trouble. Covering a sofa or bed with a mattress cover for a short while to see if your symptoms improve can help you figure out if this is the true culprit. May suggests getting covers from moving companies first, because they are much cheaper. Then, if the cover helps, you can spend more money on an expensive one that might work even better.

Sanders finally got over his cough, but mold still seems to be growing in his bathroom. He tried covering up the black spores with tape, but he doesn’t think it has helped much. His apartment doesn’t have central air, only a window unit that doesn’t do a good job moving moisture out of the apartment or circulating air.

May says not having circulating air in a room can be problematic, noting that window units often don’t have good filters that can clean potential hazardous allergens and mold spores from circulating back through the room. Sanders plans on moving out after this semester, leaving his mold to someone else.

Besides mold causing you health problems, bacteria can also be dangerously prevalent in the apartments and dorms of college students. Bill Picking, professor of biosciences at the University, says clean living is especially important in communal living areas. With so many people creating a mess in dorms or apartment complexes, the amount of food for bacteria to grow on increases.

Picking says we live around bacteria all the time, and only very little of it is pathogenic, a big word meaning “it’s bad for you.” Staying away from such bacteria means cleaning dishes and not letting food pile up so bacteria can grow on it.

Still, even if you do have dangerous bacteria growing in your living area, Picking says direct contact is necessary for illness. Dish rags used to clean areas where raw meat has touched should be immediately washed. Picking suggests using bleach and hot water to ensure you are safe. Rags can pick up bacteria everywhere they touch and spread it just as easily. Washing your rags frequently can reduce the risk of spreading nasty bacteria when you think you are really cleaning.

Perhaps more disgusting, Picking says every time we flush a toilet, an aerosol of fecal matter gets released into the air, and the bacteria released can cause diarrhea.

Still, he says, the kitchen is probably more dangerous, because bacteria has more of a chance of making direct contact with you or being ingested.

Just because flu season has ended doesn’t mean college living has suddenly become safe again, so stay healthy by staying clean.