🔬👀Exciting Insights into the World of Dust Bunnies & Co.

 

The phenomenon of dust: in advertising, it is meticulously tackled using all sorts of means, for some people it is an everyday enemy, for others it is a “roommate” that is tolerated to a certain extent: the dust vole.

After the children had grown impressive specimens of the dust vole on the floor next to their PCs, I took the opportunity to investigate the subject in more detail using scientific methods for school, together with one of my sons and his friend. The complete program: observation on different types of floor, questioning people, researching on the Internet and examining under the microscope in 2012.

Image 1 “TV dust bunnies” dust behind the TV cabinet with carpet abrasion from a loosely lying carpet, human hair and textile abrasion from children playing on the floor on the neighboring parquet (due to the density of the threads, this is definitely an older model)

The observations and results were so astonishing that I would like to pass them on here.

The questions on the subject

· What are dust voles made of?

· How do they form and where do they occur most frequently?

· Does the floor covering play a role?

· Are there other criteria for the formation of dust voles?

 

Image 2 “Cat dust bunnies” - dust with cat hair from a black/white patterned cat with upholstery abrasion (light sofa) on a light carpet

The first aha moment: it is not called a dust vole everywhere. Not everyone understands it either. From dust mice, German Wollmaus 🐭, Mullen, Staubflusen, Moggeln (Swabia), Mutzeln (Saxony), Wauggel, Wuggal (Bavaria) to dust bunnies 🐰 (“dust bunny” in America and Great Britain), house rabbits (“hybelkanin”, Norway) and larger animals such as dust sheep 🐑 (“moutons de poussière”, France) and woolly dogs 🐶 (“villakoira”, Finland), and not forgetting the translation of the “pet name” in the German army language: the NATO mouse.

The observations of the dust mouse on the various types of floor after I had promised not to remove any dust from certain rooms and corners for one (!) month:

Image 3 “Fresh Dog dust bunnies” - dust with hair of light dog fur in the entry of a house. It is vacuumed every day.

1. Occurrence on the various types of floor – observation

1.1 Tiles

Tiles are often used in the entrance and hallway areas as well as in the kitchen. They are made of ceramic and therefore do not build up static charge. Since the air flow in these areas is very high and the "probability of wool" increases with the frequency of door openings and the number of residents passing through, this is where dust bunnies are formed most quickly. Particularly beautiful, stately dust bunnies can be found under hallway cupboards on feet and in corners.

Image 4 ‘Fresh bathroom wool mouse’ with hair, fabric abrasion (towels) and feather on tiled floor

Image 5 "Windcatcher wool mouse" dust with sand, doormat, shoe and textile abrasion on tiled floor

1.2 Laminate

Plastic carpets or laminate floors laid over large areas of the room tend to become electrostatically charged. Manufacturers also offer floors that are said to be antistatic. The only laminate floor tested was one that was declared antistatic, and the best product still allowed charges of almost 6 kilovolts. [1] This charge causes the floor to literally attract fibers and the smooth surface provides enough rolling space for the dust bunnies.

 

Image 6 ‘Older teenage wool mouse’ with a lot of textile abrasion due to the clothes lying around and carpet abrasion with some hairs

1.3 Wooden parquet

Depending on the wood varnish, the surface is also very smooth; according to our observations, the dust bunnies do not seem to move quite as quickly on oiled parquet.

1.4 Linoleum

Does not charge as much due to its composition of linseed oil, wood flour and natural resins. Nevertheless, dust bunnies are still created here. They roll quite well over this floor due to its smooth surface.

 

Image 7 “Hallway wool mouse” – dust with grains of sand and textile abrasion on linoleum floor

1.5 PVC flooring

We could not see any difference in the rolling behavior or the formation of dust bunnies compared to laminate.

 

Image 8 `Old kitchen wool mouse’ behind dishwasher with food crumbs, sand and fibres on linoleum floor

Image 9 ‘Smoker's wool mouse’ - dust with fibres and grease droplets on tiled floor behind the kitchen cupboard in the kitchen of a smoker    

1.6 Carpet made of natural wool

This is where things got interesting. We did not find any dust bunnies. On the bedroom carpet we had to literally "scrape" the dust bunnies together. In hard-to-reach places the dust has settled over the fibers like a kind of carpet. Against the sunlight the remaining dust looks slightly grayish. On Persian carpets the colors appear duller under the dust. Otherwise you can hardly see the dust on the slightly speckled carpet. The "walkways" on the carpet are mostly free of dust.

Image 10 Fresh “bedroom wool mouse” dust with textile fibers, hair and carpet fibers from sheep’s wool carpet

1.7 Synthetic fiber carpet

Similar to natural wool carpet, but synthetic fiber carpets are more statically charged. Here, too, when laid across the entire area, we only found a large accumulation of dust under the cupboards or in computer cabling, but not the typical "round" dust bunnies. This is perhaps one reason why offices are so often equipped with carpet. Dust bunnies don't roll around so well. The dust was extremely visible on dark carpets, and the more natural the color, the less noticeable the dust.

1.8 Old floorboards with gaps

One of the winners in the dust bunnies test, visually speaking. Although we did find a few mini dust bunnies in the corners and under the cupboard after a month of dusting, most of them were kept out of the hallway by the old door thresholds, and when dust got into the floorboards, most of it ended up in the more or less large gaps between the floorboards. A good optical result.

2. Excursus on stamens: Originally we also wanted to examine stamens, the fibers of which were sometimes more densely woven than those of the dust bunnies and could reach incredible lengths of up to 1.80m on the wall. However, since there were no scientific explanations for this on Wikipedia or other websites and the wildest speculations were circulating in the forums on the Internet (e.g. dust on the spider's threads), we temporarily abandoned this subsection and concentrated only on the dust bunnies. 

3. Observation under the microscope 

We examined the dust bunnies using the Bresser microscope "MicroSet 40x-1024x". Most of the photos shown were taken with the 10x WF eyepiece. Since the dust bunnies were sometimes very dense, we removed individual pieces from them in order to be able to see the individual parts better. 

3.1 Shape and texture of dust bunnies under the light microscope 

As the magnification capabilities of a light microscope are limited, we were only able to roughly identify the individual components of the dust bunnies we collected. We mostly attributed the suddenly visible "colorful" fibers to the carpets, blankets or textiles lying there or to the children playing there. The dust bunnies shown represent a selection of the most common dust bunnies. 

4. Internet research

Dust is the collective term for the finest solid particles (particles) that can float in gases, especially in the air, for a long time. A ubiquitous form of dust that consists of organic and inorganic material is house dust. Particles with a diameter of more than 10 micrometers (1 micrometer is a thousandth of a millimeter), the so-called coarse dust, stick more or less well to the nose hairs or the mucous membranes of the nasopharynx. Smaller and smallest dust particles (fine dust, ultrafine particles) can penetrate deep into the lungs via the trachea and the bronchi. Therefore, fine dust is also referred to as respirable fine dust[1] Dust consists of organic and inorganic materials: Fibers (e.g. from clothing, carpets, furniture), Hair (from humans and animals) Dander (from humans and animals) Grains of rock (e.g. road dust brought in from outside on shoes) Pollen, bacteria, mites, mold (the latter may, but does not always, occur) Around five milligrams of dust per square meter are produced every day in an ordinary household. The amount and composition of the dust cocktail depend on the lifestyle and the location and furnishings of the house.[2] A dust mouse or wool mouse is a collection of fibers, hair and dust that can be found in households as a gray, often light bundle that moves quickly in a draft.

A dust ball is created when wind or a draft of air glides over a dusty surface. This causes small flakes to be dislodged, which then gather together to form larger balls that can reach a size of several centimeters. There is a very shallow draft of air under cupboards and beds in particular, which can drive the process. However, electrostatic charging also plays an important role, particularly in synthetic fibers and strong sunlight, as well as dry air in heated rooms. After a while, dust balls often form in the wiring behind the computer. If these flakes get into the intake stream of a fan, this can lead to considerable impairment (cooling problems) and can even cause hardware damage.[3]

Image 11 “Computer dust bunnies” dust with lots of small fibers behind the fan of a three-year-old computer standing on a wooden floor (fan has even smaller fibers chopped)

5 Assessment and conclusion

At first glance, wool mice appear to be a grey mass (except for the ‘smoker's wool mouse’, which is coloured brown-yellow with nicotine).  However, woolly mice consist of many different materials in different colours. That surprised us. We were able to find everything in the dust that accompanies us in our daily lives: from crumbs, textile and carpet fibres to hair and sand.

We discovered that the main component of the wool mouse consists more of fibres than of dust. These fibres have the ability to clump together so well that they hold together like a net.

The sources of dust bunnies are as varied as their composition.

The starting product of a dust bunnies is heavy dust that cannot stay in the air and sinks to the floor. Dust is created everywhere, whether by skin cells falling on the keyboard, clothing rubbing against the chair or street dirt from the abrasion of shoes.[2] The same goes for exhaust fumes and pollen that enter the house from outside. Soot and ash particles from combustion processes such as smoking, fireplaces and candles also increase the amount of "heavy" dust particles. This heavy dust sinks to the floor and offers the swirling fibers ideal opportunities to form a dust bunnies in the next draft of air.

In this case, newly formed dust bunnies are less dense in terms of the interweaving of the fibers than the "old" dust bunnies that we found in hard-to-reach places.

Our hypothesis that the floor covering plays a decisive role in the formation was only partially confirmed.

While fibers can move easily in a draft on smooth floors, the dust particles on a carpet tend to "stick" and form a grayish, velvety-looking dust surface (→English term for dust bunnies = beggars velvet) in places where no one walks (preferably under cupboards with a shallow draft).

In this respect, carpets prevent dust from whirling around and, when laid individually on smooth floors, catch it somewhat. The carpet runners are therefore very practical in the entrance halls. If a "dust-like" pattern is chosen for the carpet in terms of color, the dust is not as noticeable as on a dark background, very light or very dark tiles.

Our observations, surveys and internet research have shown that many other criteria are also crucial for the formation of dust bunnies:

The draft is caused by the residents walking back and forth, by opening doors, so that the entrance, hallway, staircase and kitchen areas are most affected by dust bunnies. This means: the more people there are in a household and the more people walk through it, the more dust is created. People and animals in themselves are a source of dust.

Another main source is cooling fans on electrical devices, including computers. They literally suck in the dust. And since the devices are often made with electrostatically chargeable plastic parts, they can "hold" this dust well.

The fireplace tops the list. Anyone who owns such a stove often enjoys beautiful dust bunnies in the corners or under the furniture. If, in addition, a lot of television is watched in this room, the children bring in sand from outside and play on the floor, many people or pets are constantly going in and out of the room, the floor is still slippery, there may still be smoking and the room is on the ground floor next to a main road with a lot of exhaust fumes, the formation of mega dust bunnies is guaranteed.

The experience of people interviewed has shown that the "heavy" dust "in itself" does not "do anything" when it is lying around. It is only when it is stirred up that so-called fine dust is created in the air (e.g. when sweeping), which causes problems for allergy sufferers. In other words, the development of fine dust from the dust balls stirred up with the heavy dust causes them more problems when they are cleaning than when they are just walking through.

Sources [1], [3],: Wikipedia & [2], [5] German science television series "Quarks & Co.", [4]Stiftung Warentest, non-profit German consumer organization 

Image 12 ‘Workshop wool mouse’ with sand, wood shavings, paint particles, metal splinters and fibres on concrete floor