OCEANSIDE, N.Y. — Jaclyn Minkoff is allergic and asthmatic. So she sleeps in a bedroom with no carpet or curtain, her bedding zippered into tightly woven cases to minimize exposure to dust mites.

Closed windows keep out pollen and ragweed; the filtered air conditioner goes on early in the season. An air purifier runs nightly, and pillowcases are changed every two days to rid the room of pollen brought in on the 24-year-old's hair.

"Most fragrances I have a problem with, and any air freshener is terrible," said Minkoff, who lives with her parents while studying to be a physician's assistant. "I try not to be in the house when it's cleaned because the cleaning chemicals bother my asthma."

Her family would no sooner buy a fringed curtain or pile of tasseled throw pillows than they would a pail of dust.

The only carpet in the house, in the living room, is sprayed twice a year with an anti-dust mite solution. Easily cleaned vertical blinds, leather sofas and uncluttered mica cabinetry offer no refuge to allergens, and floors are cleaned often with Swiffers.

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Of course, the family owns no pets, with their problematic hair, fur, dander, feathers and saliva. Minkoff never even slept with stuffed animals as a child. Even a fishbowl could harbor mold.

Asthma and allergies are tough, even life-threatening, but single-minded diligence can make home a haven. Frequent cleaning, eliminating or encasing allergens and irritants and good habits are the basis of good symptom control, say allergists. Some don't even recommend buying air purifiers.

"It's not clear they work," says allergist Dr. Joseph D'Amore, with offices in Huntington, Baldwin and Queens. "If you keep the house clean, pets out, don't smoke, control temperature between 68 and 70 degrees and humidity between 50 percent and 60 percent and don't put your face in bleach, you see much better control."

While the frill-free decor might pose a hardship to some decorators, it's become a virtue to Jaclyn Minkoff's mother, Nancy, a school librarian who says it's all very easy to clean.

Not that it wasn't "overwhelming" at first, when her daughter was very young and very sick, "to have someone say your whole lifestyle has to change — get rid of the carpets, the curtains, upholstered items. But then, as you sort things out and reorganize and change things little by little ... it's not a problem," she says. "It's a lot of work ... but it really pays off."

There are an estimated 50 million Americans with allergies, and 20 million asthmatics, including 12 million for whom allergies can trigger attacks, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, which says it is the nation's oldest and largest patient advocacy group. For reasons not well understood, the number of asthmatics has doubled in the past 20 years, says spokesman Mike Tringale, although the death rate has stabilized.

Vasomotor rhinitis, which many asthmatics also have, produces allergy-like symptoms although it isn't an allergy and may be triggered by non-protein irritants such as smoke, fragrances and ozone. A much smaller number of sufferers have what is called multiple chemical sensitivities — not well understood yet and difficult to prove — where a panoply of ill effects is blamed on exposure to gases and chemicals.

For them, many common materials may cause symptoms — most likely from the off-gassing of substances like volatile organic compounds, including the formaldehyde produced by many paints, solvents, varnishes and particleboard. Often, asthmatics and those with vasomotor rhinitis find common substances irritating as well and eventually learn to avoid products that affect them, from fragrances to Clorox.

For those who want to spend money, there are a slew of "natural" or "nontoxic" products spawned by the growing unease over the potential health and environmental effects of the more than 5,000 chemicals introduced into the economy since World War II. "We are pickled," says D'Amore. "We've been exposed to more chemicals in the last 60 years than ever in human history."

For the home, those who worry about indoor air quality can find products, from insulation and paint to furniture and flooring, certified as low emission by the Greenguard Environmental Institute in Atlanta. www.greenguard.org. Companies such as BioShield Paints and cleaners, Seventh Generation and ENJO offer nontoxic cleaning supplies.

While such products may be better for the environment, are they better for those with allergies? Doctors advise anyone with sensitivities to choose hypo-allergenic, fragrance-free products, but it's not automatic, however, that "natural" products will be risk-free.

Some experts, like Darryl Zeldin, senior scientist for the Lab of Respiratory Biology at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health, caution against assuming products or chemicals are harmful without evidence that there are any ill effects. But even he agrees that, because of the complexity and difficulty in studying or proving connections between chemicals and ailments, much is unknown.

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Some who claim to be hypersensitive simply use a diluted, mild dishwashing soap to clean their whole house.

Dr. Robert Corriel, who has an allergy practice with Dr. Sharon Markovics at Manhasset Allergy and Asthma Associates, says most patients — and he himself — have learned to avoid whatever bothers them. "The one thing that sets me off is potpourri," he says. "I can't go into one of these candle stores. I get very dizzy, I start to sneeze and I walk out."

He recommends Allergy Control Products, a company in Connecticut www.allergycontrol.com for dust mite sprays and bedding covers, and frequent washing of bedding in hot water, as well as going curtainless and rugless.

But he is realistic. "My experience is most people are going to decorate the way they want to decorate. So if you have curtains, you have to vacuum all the time. If you have horizontal shades, you have to dust."

Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service

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