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Much as I love my black furniture, it shows dust at the drop of a hat.Our shelf of cosplay helmets is a lot more attractive when they can gleam as if the imperial guard, or Cyclops, just set their gear down for a minute. We have some storage behind a glass door to keep dust out, but sadly it’s not big enough for our helmets.
Are there any tactics I can use to preemptively minimize dust, so that when I do attack everything with a damp cloth everything will get done at warp speed? -Laura
Perhaps you can find some tips in the these posts…
Homies, how do YOU deal with dust?
Unfortunately my best suggestion is just to dust more often, and preemptively get rid of any dust factories like heavy curtains or carpets. I rent, and the apartment has carpet, so I generally vaccuum before I dust, just in case the vaccuum stirs more dust into the air. I have no idea whether this works, but it makes me feel better for thinking it does. I’ve not found that using pledge or other dusting cleaners is more effective than a swiffer duster.
The old fashioned way to completely clean a room by hand (ie cloth or hand duster) is to start by dusting from the top of the room (picture rails, high woodwork, tops of pictures on the wall) working your way down bit by bit to the things at the lowest level of the room. This is because any dust you disturb but don’t catch in the duster falls downwards to the next level, so if you are working in the same direction you have a second chance it again. By this logic the very last thing you do is the floor, ideally after waiting a while to let any circulating dust fall down.
Now that we have vaccum cleaners with attachments you can use to dust and which retain way more dust its less crucial. However it still true that gravity will cause any dust circulating in the air to fall downwards meaning that it still makes sense to dust from top to bottom and vacuum the floor last.
Just to link this into the orginal question, keep those shiny things high up and dust them first and you’ll at least expose them to less fall out than if they are kept lower down.
Yeah my Mom always says that, too. I definitely clean my kitchen and bathrooms this way, but not my living room. Maybe my vaccuum just sucks (ha), or maybe I just refuse to do it the way you’re supposed to, but i never notice dust falling when I’m cleaning it up. It’s always contained in the cloth/swiffer.
Well you might just have a really good cloth or swiffer!! Also it takes time for that circulated dust to make it down, the old fashioned advice is to let the room rest a bit between the dusting and final vacuum/sweep.
But this is all counsel of perfection from yesteryear and almost certainly assumes you won’t be leaving the house to work that day (or probably anytime soon). I try and bear it in mind as if definitely makes life harder to work against it, but I have no shame in admitting that a fair amount of my cleaning is of the emergency as needed type and frequently breaks these rules!
yeah… yesteryear’s perfection doesn’t work for me. Ain’t nobody got time fo’ that. 30-45 minutes every 2 weeks is the best I can manage, but all the better for you if it works for you!
What do you use for window coverings instead of curtains?
At the moment, just blinds. I just moved, and i’m trying to decide whether to put the curtains up or not, but I haven’t made that decision yet based on the limited dust i have to deal with here compared to the last place. I have also wanted to put frosted glass style window stickies up (like this: https://www.amazon.com/Artscape-Etched-Glass-Window-Film/dp/B000Q3PRYA but they come in many designs) for the sliding glass door because i loooooaaatthhhee vertical blinds.
Yes, I need this question answered as well. I have four “espresso” colored bookshelves from Target that are arranged to look like built-ins…..and they are definitely a dust magnet. With two cats and a dog, there’s plenty of fur floaties as well. I don’t have carpeting or curtains, but there’s still dust galore.
So far my best efforts have been to purchase an iLife robotic vacuum (like a cheaper Roomba) which has helped to alleviate the pet hair tumble weeds. I’m hoping that less dust on the floor will eventually equal less dust in the air and therefore less dust on the furniture……..but it won’t eliminate ALL of the dust, that’s for sure.
Ideally you should have your ducts cleaned every few years. At a bare minimum you should vacuum all vents and air returns regularly.
I use the stiffer sweeper cloths instead of a wet cloth, and I find it works like a hot damn. One cloth works to dust my whole 700 sq ft apartment (with heaps if furniture. It’s a problem.)
No need to rinse, no weird streeks, and the lavender scented ones make me feel relaxed, even when I’m cleaning :3
This may sound extreme, but you can buy homes, or have installed in your home, baseboard vacuums. They are amazing and pull from the floor and the air (in a way that won’t suck up your shoelace or your kid’s Barbie accessories). Also a high powered air purifier can collect loads of dust. Be conscious also of where you live. If you live in an agricultural area, you may be getting a solid layer of dirt and pesticides from the farms nearby. Not much you can do about that except move. If you live on a busy street, as well, you’ll get plenty of soot from trucks and buses. No fun.
When I moved in I switched our furnace filters to the slightly pricier ones that claim to attract collect dust and allergens better and it actually seems to be helping. Although it took a couple years to make a noticeable difference
Embrace an abandoned mansion draped furniture aesthetic?
I like dusting with used dryer sheets. And… this is counter-intuitive to carpets causing more dust, but I think area rugs help trap the dust so it doesn’t float around and stick to other things.
Definitely get your furnace and ducts cleaned, but our house is constantly dusty! Between the house just being old, and many of the houses in the neighborhood being torn down and being re-built, I’m constantly fighting dust! How I deal with it is going for white furniture, and using a cleaning spray with a microfibre cloth about once a week – two weeks. Limiting clutter on open surfaces really helps too, so you don’t need to move anything to give a quick wipe down. Neither of these things really helps the poster though… Good luck!
Damp cloths don’t work nearly as well as swiffer dusters or swiffer sweeper things. They seriously grab ALL the dust.
Change or clean your filter regularly. Depending on your furnace/system, it can have just as much impact as the better filters mentioned previously. Similarly, keep your AC unit clean.
Wash and brush your animals outside, if that’s an option. Also, go for frequency, and use a shedding comb if need be.
Negative ions, aka indoor water feature, are supposed to help with dust, although my understanding was it simply allows it to fall out of the air, and yet others say that it somehow makes dust less, which I don’t get…
There are some things (besides just dusting more often and cleaning filters regularly, etc) that help keep dust down. Himalayan salt lamps and water fountains both naturally attract dust (and they’re good for the air quality in your home in other ways, too). I have a fountain in my bedroom plus a salt lamp in every room that I make sure to use regularly. They both really cut down on the dust, although I try to remember to dust once every week or two anyway, just to keep things looking spiffy (in reality, I get around to dusting about once a month!). I have a very gothic/punk home that is mostly made up of dark furniture, too, so I wound up trying these things because otherwise I felt like I had to dust every day (and that shit was NOT gonna happen!).
The salt lamps, depending on what kind you buy, can be pretty cheap, especially if you start off with just tealight candle holders or something, so I’d try that first.
You can never have your home completely dust-free, that’s for sure. Believe me, I have tried as hard as I could (considering I am a professional end of lease cleaning specialist). Nevertheless, if you perform a regular dusting twice a week, you will reduce the amounts of dust & pollen coming from the outside to a minimum level. Throw an eye to the following checklist:
1. Vacuum clean twice a week
2. Sweep the floors every few days
3. Don’t forget to mop your floors afterwards
4. I suggest microfiber cloths to dust with over regular ones
5. Clean your walls thoroughly once a month
6. Declutter your home
7. If you have pets, make sure to comb them every day
I hope this helps! If you need professional advices, you can head over to our website: http://www.moveoutcleanersmelbourne.com.au
I’ve also found that a can of canned air can help with shelves of delicate things. I have a shelf of glass figures that I know I’ll break if I move them once a week to dust. Easier to just hit them with the air can. Of course that just moves the dust and doesn’t pick it up, but then I can vacuum what does settle on the floor after.