Dust bunny

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up dust bunny in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Dust bunnies (often one word, dustbunnies) are little clumps of dust that form under furniture and in corners that are not cleaned regularly. They are made of hair, lint, dead skin, dust, and sometimes light rubbish and debris, and are held together by static electricity and felt-like-entanglement. In some regions of Britain, dust bunnies are sometimes called beggar's velvet.^[1]

Dust bunnies are frequently a source of amusement by making out that they are actual living creatures formed of dust, attested to by the many websites on the care and feeding of dust bunnies.^[2] Many cartoons reference dust bunnies, and parents often give tongue-in-cheek warnings to their children that dust bunnies will haunt them if they do not clean their rooms, not unlike Santa Claus giving lumps of coal to naughty children.

However, they can actually be harmful when they house dust mites or other parasites. A Dustbunny Cleaner has been invented. It consists of a robotic ball with an electrostatic sleeve that rolls about under furniture collecting dustbunnies and other material.[1]

Dust bunnies are harmful to electronics, as they can seriously obstruct air flow through CPU heat sinks, severely raising temperatures and shortening the life of electronic components.

[edit] Popular culture

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

In the 20th Century Fox release of the Japanese anime film My Neighbor Totoro, the phrase dust bunnies is used to translate Makkuro Kurosuke, a kind of animated dirt/soot that inhabits abandoned buildings. A more literal translation would be pitch-black blackies.^[3]

Loonette the clown has live dust bunnies living under her couch on The Big Comfy Couch, which actually look like bunnies.

Dust bunnies were featured in an episode of the Nicktoon Rugrats, and was shown in Season 6.

In an episode of Frasier entitled To Tell the Truth, Niles notes that there are dust bunnies under Frasier's piano.

On Newhart, Joanna Loudon was afraid of dust bunnies.

In the game Beyond Zork they are a type of enemy.

In the game Civilization II: Test of Time, they are creatures made up of dust held together by a type of fungus that live on a dead, moon-like world called Naumachia. These "bunnies" closely resemble North American tumbleweed and have been found, accidentally, to be edible. Naumachia also has vast "seas" of dust suspended in Brownian motion, among other strange phenomena.

Dust Bunnies are also referred to as Dust Monkeys.

In the cartoon Mr. Bogus the dust bunnies are called Dirt Dudes.

In a deleted scene of The Secret (The Office episode), Dwight warns the audience not to be fooled by the phrase "dust bunnies".

In her series of Ghost Hunter novels, Jayne Ann Krentz depicts a species of 6-legged 'dust bunnies' as loyal pets.

Dust bunnies are portrayed as real bunnies in a [Green Planet] [2] Comic.

In the United States Military, dust bunnies are referred to as "ghost turds".

In episode 22 of the series Two and a Half Men, Alan is sleepwalking. He is moving the vacuum cleaner around that isn't turned on, producing vacuum cleaner noises himself. When Charlie asks him what he's doing, Alan explains he's cleaning up the poo from dustbunnies.