Your house, my house, everybody's house collects dust. It settles on our knickknacks, countertops, tables, and dirties the carpets. More than just dirt, house dust is a mixture of dead skin cells, hair, clothing fibers, bacteria, dust mites, bits of dead bugs, soil particles, pollen, and microscopic specks of plastic. Household dust is no longer something to sweep under the rug.

In this article, we will just look at dead skin.

New skin cells gradually push their way to the top layer. When they reach the top, they die and are "weathered" by the environment and your daily activities. The top "dead" layer is called the stratum corneum. Eventually, the dead cells break away from the epidermis and fall off, making room for newer cells growing up from below. It takes roughly one month for new cells to get all the way to the top layer, meaning the skin you have a month from today will be completely new compared to the skin you have now. That's amazing don't you think?

If you wonder exactly how many skin cells fall off, here are some staggering numbers. Scientists estimate that the human body is made up of 10 trillion cells, give or take, in total. Your skin makes up around 16 percent of your body weight, which means you have an estimated 1.6 trillion skin cells. Of course, this estimate can vary tremendously according to a person's size. The important thing is that you have a lot of skin cells. Of those billions of skin cells, between 30,000 and 40,000 of them fall off every hour. Over a 24-hour period, you lose almost a million skin cells.

Where do all these dead skin cells go? The dust that collects on your tables, TV, windowsills and on those picture frames that are so hard to get clean is made mostly from dead human skin cells. In other words, your house is filled with former bits of yourself. In one year, you'll shed more than 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) of dead skin. It gets even grosser: Your house is also filled with trillions of microscopic life forms called dust mites that eat your old dead skin.

An important aspect to consider is how much of this accumulates inside our forced-air HVAC systems, and every time the system or air handler turns on it recirculates dust throughout every cubic inch of your home. If you are one of the many who suffer from allergies, asthma, sinus or respiratory problems, this can be a huge problem. But there is help.

Just by having your air ducts cleaned will make an amazing difference in the accumulation of dust in your home, or place of business. Include having them disinfected using a certified 100% natural disinfectant such as Benefect (see video)

Another thing that will help would be to install a whole-house air purifier such as Reme Halo. It installs directly inside the ductwork so every time the air handler turns on it purifies every cubic inch of the air in your home or place of business.