Your pillow is stuffed with dead skin… and 8 other horrifying facts you never know about your bedroom
The amount of germs and bacteria currently in your bedroom will make your skin crawl
IT'S a favourite room for many of us, the place we go to chill out after a hard day.
But your bedroom could be harbouring more than a few nasty surprises.
Warning, if you're easily creeped out you'd better steel yourself for this one... here are 10 stomach-churning facts you never knew about your bedroom
Your bed probably boasts 1.5 million dust mites... not so enticing now, is it?
Yep, the average bed probably has about 1.5 million dust mites roaming around it.
You won't be able to spot them either, as they are less than a millimetre long.
They live on dead skin cells and are especially bad for people with asthma.
The good news? They like warm and damp conditions, so leaving your bed unmade can actually help get rid of them.
Sorry but 20,000 of them alone are in your duvet
In 2006, a study found most duvets have about 20,000 mites in them.
The bad news? If you don't wash your duvet every six months, it'll likely be even more.
During the research one which hadn't seen water for 11 YEARS was tested and found to have a whopping 45g of dead skin and dust mite poo in it.
A third of your pillow’s weight is due to dead skin, dust mites and bugs
This disgusting statistic come courtesy of another study, which also found germs and bacteria can creep into pillows which have tears in.
We shed a massive 8lbs of skin every year, so naturally some of that is going to find its way into your pillow.
There are 4,000 more germs in your carpet than on your toilet seat
Carpets can have as much as 200,000 germs per SQUARE INCH. That's a pretty hefty stat.
They are a hotbed of viruses, allergens and bacteria, which is why you need to vacuum and deep clean them regularly.
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If your mattress is eight years old, it probably has 10lbs of dead skin in it
This stomach-churning claim came courtesy of bed manufacturer Dreams.
You spend about a third of your life asleep, so it's time to invest in where you do it.
If you mattress is old and saggy get a new one, use a protector on it and clean it at least four times a year. Vacuum it, then clean any gross bits and use a deodoriser to freshen it up.
You probably sweat about a litre in bed every week
Yep, most of us sweat about 200ml a night, so that would be over a litre a week.
That translates as a lot of sticky and stinky stuff in your sheets - make sure you change them every seven days.
Got food poisoning? You could secrete salmonella onto your sheets
Beds are warm and lovely things, which is why we spend so much time in them.
That's even though the sheets probably have skin, bacteria and excrement on them.
As well as being disgusting, that can have a big impact on your health.
Dr Lisa Ackerley is a home hygiene expert and previously explained: "If people have a cold, the cold and flu virus. It can survive on the bed linen and it can survive a wash.
"Someone with food poisoning could be excreting salmonella into the bed."
Wash sheets once a week, no excuses.
Dirty pyjamas could give your skin infections or cystitis
So you're changing your sheets a lot, but what about what you wear to bed?
In 2013, mattress company Ergoflex found dirty pyjamas can have a horrifying effect on your health.
They are full of microorganisms and if you wear the same pair for a week you'll have more of a chance of getting something like cystitis of a skin problem.
Your laundry basket is probably breeding bacteria
Some of us keep our dirty clothes bins in the bedroom, which makes sense as that's where we get undressed.
You might want to think again though, as it's been claimed laundry bins are crammed with bacteria.
They're often full of sweaty clothes, sometimes which are damp, so it's not that surprising is it?