That's disgusting: dirty sheets

By Susan Melgren

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Whether they’re too lazy, too cheap or too forgetful, most college students don’t wash their sheets regularly. But fail to wash your sheets enough, and your sweet sanctuary of sleep could turn into a haven for germs, filth and microscopic creatures.

Philip Tierno, associate professor of microbiology at the New York University School of Medicine, says that every night, we shed one and a half million clusters of skin cells per hour. Multiply that by seven or eight hours, and you’ll find yourself waking up in 12 million particles of your own body.

And your body’s discarded particles make a delicious meal for dust mites. These tiny creatures crawl into bedding and eat dead skin. They leave behind feces, and when they die, they leave their bodies, too.

Skin cells aren’t the only thing you’re leaving behind each morning. Tierno says our beds are full of bodily fluids. Sweat, tears, saliva and snot can seep into your sheets. Our beds also hold traces of urine, feces and other bodily discharge.

The dust and debris accumulate over time. Tierno says that at the end of five years, dust mites make up 10 percent of your pillow, and after 10 years, your mattress doubles in weight from the debris.

Tierno says to wash your sheets every seven days—yes, once a week—in hot water (150° to 160° F) and to dry them in a hot cycle. This ensures you’re killing any living creatures that might be lurking in the folds of your sheets.

So sleep tight. And don’t let any bed bugs bite.

 

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