Even when you give your home a thorough, floor-to-ceiling clean, you’ll no doubt be disappointed to find dust building up on your furniture and appliances after only a day or even a few hours in some cases.
This is a frustrating experience, and it makes you feel like your house is never clean. The good news is that there are a few techniques available for long-lasting dust-free surfaces.
Why Dust Builds Up So Quickly
The sunlight streaming through your windows reveals tiny specks of dust floating in the air even after you’ve just cleaned. This dust circulates throughout the home via the HVAC system.
When you clean, you’re just removing the dust that’s fallen on your furniture and electronics, but you aren’t tackling the source of the dust or dealing with the dust in the HVAC system.
Dust is made out of everything from pollen, dander, and hair fragments to fabric fibers, food crumbs, dead skin cells, and more. This means that more dust enters your home on people, pets, and anything else that you bring into the environment.
As the dust filters through the air, it builds static electricity by bumping into other particles. This natural charge means that the dust is actually attracted to your electronics and other belongings that carry a small charge.
Benefits of Consistent Dust-Prevention Habits
Dust makes your home look filthy and unwelcoming, but there are other reasons why you should be interested in preventing dust from building up. Many of the tiny particles in dust cause allergies and exacerbate more serious respiratory conditions.
In addition, dust can impact the overall performance and life of your electronics, appliances, and other belongings. By staying ahead of dust, you can feel better and save money.
Proven Techniques to Keep Surfaces Dust-Free Longer
Now that you know more about what dust is and why it’s so hard to stay ahead of, you might assume that you should throw your hands in the air and accept defeat. While you can’t prevent dust from ever returning, you can take steps to keep your surfaces dust-free for longer periods of time. Here’s how.
Use the Right Dusting Method
Your dusting method makes a big impact on how quickly dust settles back onto your furniture and other belongings. Using a feather duster was once commonplace, but it’s highly ineffective. Rather than capturing dust, a feather duster sweeps dust into the air. Of course, what goes up must come down. A better idea is to use a microfiber cloth, which captures the dust.
You also should always start cleaning at the top of the rooms. For example, dust off the ceiling fan blades and light fixtures before moving onto the furniture. Do the baseboards last. This is because any dust that is dislodged will eventually make its way downward.
Treat Surfaces with Dust-Repelling Products
Because dust has a small electric charge, an important cleaning strategy is to reduce the charge on the items in your home. One of the easiest ways to do this is with a dryer sheet.
Dryer sheets are made with a chemical that reduces static in your laundry, and this same chemical works well on your baseboards, windowsills and electronics. As a bonus, you can enjoy the fresh scent of laundry throughout your home when you dust with dryer sheets.
Reduce Dust at the Source
It makes sense that you’d have less dust around the house if you prevent it from entering your home in the first place. While you can’t prevent all dust, you can take steps like removing your shoes and coats at the door.
Wipe down your pets before they come in from the outdoors. Keep your doors and windows closed as much as possible. You can also minimize dust buildup by replacing the HVAC filters regularly, grooming your pets often, and keeping your floors clean.
Extra Tips for Hard-to-Reach or High-Dust Areas
While you no doubt clean the easy-to-access and highly visible areas of your home often, those hard-to-reach spots might only get your attention once in a blue moon. These areas, such as on top of the ceiling fan blades, upper kitchen cabinets, tall bookshelves, and more, might be coated in a thick layer of dust before you think about cleaning them.
While these are challenging areas to clean, you can get the job done with ease with the right tools. For example, wrap a pillowcase around the ceiling fan blades. Clamp the pillowcase and slide your hands across the blade to capture dust as you clean. Wrap a microfiber cloth around a yardstick or broom handle to easily dust overhead areas.
Keeping your home dust-free is only part of the challenge of maintaining a pristine home. While there are many tips and tricks available to help you keep your space as clean as possible, learning and using these tips is easier said than done when you have a busy schedule. Whether you’re too busy to keep up with housecleaning or you simply don’t want to do everything as often as it should be done, the Better Clean team is available to help. To schedule your first Boston maid service, contact Better Clean today.
