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HOW OFTEN YOU SHOULD CHANGE BED SHEETS TO AVOID BUGS AND MOULD ABC Everyday / By Carol Rääbus * Topic:Home Sat 8 Dec 2018Saturday 8 December 2018Sat 8 Dec 2018 at 8:34am A colleague once

told me she washed her bed sheets every week and I had a small moment of existential crisis. How often do I wash my sheets? Definitely not weekly. Is it fortnightly? Monthly? Am I a filth

wizard? I started running through excuses in my head: I don't have a dryer and in winter in Hobart it takes years for things to dry. I have a small washing machine and I need to

prioritise clothes washing. I'm being environmentally friendly by using less water. I decided I needed to know if my lethargic approach to washing the sheets is genius time management

or just basic slobbiness, so I hunted down some people who know things about bugs in bedding, organising and cleaning to see what they think. SIGN UP TO THE ABC LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER Get a

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address Your information is being handled in accordance with the ABC Privacy Collection Statement. IS SHEET WASHING A WEEKLY HABIT OR MONTHLY CHORE? Susanne Thiebe is a professional

organiser in Sydney who helps clients who are feeling overwhelmed to better sort out their homes and time. She says the majority of the people she works with wash their bed linen every week

out of habit, not need. "Australians seem to change their sheets weekly," she says. "I find my clients don't even question it. They just do it because their mum did

it." Hobart-based professional cleaner Amanda Graham says the few clients of hers who ask for their sheets to be changed get it done fortnightly. "That seems to be what people

want, when they're paying for it," she says. Ms Graham says she did a quick poll of her friends to gauge their bed-changing habits and says it ranges from weekly for her friends in

Cairns, out to six weeks for friends in cooler climates. "I'm going to say the average is about three and a half weeks," she says. So it looks like I'm not the only one

slacking off in the laundry department. There does seem to be a decent amount of variation when it comes to Australians and washing sheets. CHANGING SHEETS TOO REGULARLY CAN HAVE ITS

DRAWBACKS Ms Thiebe says washing bed linen out of habit rather than need can lead to people actually forming even grosser habits by accident. "A lot of people like the washing, but they

don't like putting the sheets on and they don't like putting them away," she says. > "There are a lot of people who don't get around to putting new > sheets 

on and they just end up sleeping on their mattresses and put > the doona on top." Ms Thiebe says it's best to plan a day when you not only have time to strip and wash the doona

covers and sheets, but also have time to dry them and put new sheets on. DON'T FORGET TO WASH THE ACTUAL BEDDING, NOT JUST THE COVERS Ms Graham says while most people are pretty good

with cleaning the sheets, they'll often forget to clean or change what lies underneath. "Have you ever noticed if you go to an Airbnb place or something like that … how filthy the

mattress protector or underlay is?" she says. "I would say most places I've stayed, the underlay or mattress protector is filthy. It makes me feel gross." Ms Graham

recommends mattress protectors, underlays, doonas and pillows be washed at least every six months, if you're able to dry them properly afterwards. NOT WASHING YOUR SHEETS — WHAT'S

THE WORST THAT CAN HAPPEN? A 2018 study in the UK by a laundry company found 3.8 per cent of Brits washed their sheets once a year. Yep, just once in 12 months. You can only imagine the

smell that would emanate from annually cleaned bedding, but is it actually bad for you? Maybe. Never-cleaned bedding might grow mould and even contain fungi spores that could promote things

like tinea or ringworm to take a hold on you. DUST MITES COULD BE A PROBLEM Unwashed bedding can also become home to creatures. Stephen Doggett is a hospital scientist and head of medical

entomology in NSW Health Pathology. He knows a lot about the creepy-crawlies that like to bunk up with us in bed. "The potential insects; the main one would be dust mites," Mr

Doggett says. Dust mites are the most common critters found in beds. They eat the bits of us we leave behind — skin cells, sweat, seminal fluids — and if you don't wash your bedding

often, there's more food for the dust mites and so more dust mites. "We're pretty sloppy, humid creatures," Mr Doggett says. > "We sweat a lot and beds get moist 

and that sets up conditions > favourable to the dust mites." Dust mites are bad news for people who are allergic to them, particularly those with asthma, so washing your bedding

weekly and vacuuming regularly will help keep the mites at bay. BED BUGS ARE THE TINY VAMPIRES OF THE BED Bed bugs aren't as common as dust mites, but they can be a real pain in the bum

and back and sides and anywhere else on you that they bite. They eat what's inside us. The bugs bite humans to suck our blood, leaving their victims with itching, rashes, or in very

rare, extreme cases, anaphylactic shock. "Bed bugs are not pleasant creatures," Mr Doggett says. "They bite you in the night, they'll defecate the blood on the mattress

and the sheets get all these black spots." Bed bugs are found all over the globe and are most common in areas with high density of humans, and places where lots of people come and go —

hotels, airports, backpackers, for instance. "The term bug itself … was first used for bed bugs," Mr Doggett says. "It derives from the Middle Ages in England when people were

sleeping and got bitten in the middle of the night, and they thought it was a ghost or spirit. The term bug actually meant ghost or spirit of the dead." Bed bug infestations can be

very hard to get rid of. The bugs often actually live in the walls near a bed, and this means one infected residence in an apartment block can quickly turn into an infested complex as they

move between flats through the walls. "They're very expensive to control and a lot of people just don't have the fiscal resources to pay for control," Mr Doggett says.

Regularly changing your sheets and airing your mattress is a good way to keep an eye out for bed bugs, but cleaning alone might not get rid of them. If you find yourself with bed bugs, you

may need to call a pest controller in to help get rid of them. If you have a furry friend that sleeps in the bed with you, you might also have to keep an eye out for fleas in your bed. Fleas

can't live in a bed itself for long. They live on hairy animals — usually a dog or cat. They aren't a big problem in Australia these days, with flea treatments being quite

effective at keeping the jumpers away. SO… HOW OFTEN SHOULD I ACTUALLY WASH MY SHEETS? Frustratingly, it seems there's no one correct answer to how often you should wash your sheets. It

all depends on your personal health conditions, what you get up to in that bed (wink wink), where you live, the season, and if Fido's got fleas and so on and so on. The main tips

I'm taking away from all this icky boudoir talk is to think about what really needs washing to avoid mindlessly washing for no reason and ending up with piles of laundry on my couch and

never making the bed again. It's not laziness. It's for cleanliness. Posted Sat 8 Dec 2018 at 8:34amSaturday 8 Dec 2018 at 8:34amSat 8 Dec 2018 at 8:34am, updated Mon 19 Aug 2019

at 10:53amMonday 19 Aug 2019 at 10:53amMon 19 Aug 2019 at 10:53am Share options * Copy link * Facebook * X (formerly Twitter)