Living in a rental home can put a severe crimp in your pet population. Landlords are notorious for refusing to allow dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets and other similar smelly creatures in the house. If you’re not sold on having fish for companions, then let me extol the merits of dust bunnies.

To start with, dust bunnies are free. There’s no adoption fees, veterinary bills or grooming costs involved. You need invest nothing in their care. Not one dime. All it takes to get a healthy population of dust bunnies is time.

You’ll need a little bit of patience too, while starting up your herd of dust bunnies, because you’ll have to forego sweeping and vacuuming your bedroom and living room for a while. Depending on your personal level of obsessive-compulsive cleaning, this may require a lot of white-knuckle patience or seem like a welcome vacation. Personally, I was a little alarmed at how easy it was.

After a couple weeks, take a peek under your bed or couch. You should see the beginnings of a few dust bunnies. They will look like small semi-transparent hairy clouds at this point, maybe even have a few flakes of paper or other detritus stuck to them, but if you can see them, it’s ok to break out the cigars and champagne. Your dust bunnies have been born. Celebrate!

At this point, you need to continue to forego the vacuuming and sweeping, and also stop dusting. In fact, the best way to encourage the growth of your dust bunnies is to never clean at all. You’ll need to eat all your meals in the living room and/or bedroom. Also recommended is to let your hair grow long, then brush it 100 strokes every night in the living room. Other methods of growing dust bunnies include inviting your sister’s kids over for the weekend and letting them do whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want, removing the filter from your furnace and/or central air conditioning unit, and bringing in your outside doormats for a good beating.

Once your dust bunnies get large enough to start peeking out from the edges of the bed and couch, they are full grown. You can now start cleaning house again, carefully! Depending on how long it took for them to grow up, you may need to hire someone in the disaster recovery business to help. If you do bring in an outsider, be sure to protect your dust bunnies by either roping off the bed and couch as Do Not Clean Zones, or by removing them from the house. You can do this by carefully placing the dust bunnies in a cardboard box (no holes!) and taking them for a ride while the cleaners are finishing their evil business.

Dust bunnies are great pets. They like to go for rides. They also like staying home. They don’t mind eating and they don’t mind starving. They are willing to sleep in bed with you and just as willing to stay under the bed. They live forever and never whine about anything. They thrive in almost any environment and you won’t need a sitter for them when you go on vacation.

You need to follow just a few simple rules and your dust bunnies will probably outlive you.

1. Never take your dust bunnies for a ride in a convertible.
2. Never vacuum under or near the couch or bed where they live
3. Never handle your dust bunnies right after putting on hand lotion
4. Always keep your dust bunnies hidden when you have visitors
5. Don’t feed your dust bunnies anything that smells bad when it decomposes

If you think your dust bunnies are bored, you can play a few games with them now and then. Try placing two dust bunnies on a tile floor, side by side. Blow gently on them, and see which one goes farther. Try blowing them all the way around the floor, and see which one gets bigger. Another game they might like is the Sneeze Game. Put your head under the couch with them, and see how long you can keep it there without sneezing. Don’t cheat by taking allergy medicine first. Dust bunnies get very offended by cheaters.

That’s it! Now you know everything you need to know about growing and caring for dust bunnies. Good luck, and feel free to leave your dust bunny stories and tips in the comments.