Or ways to remove that accumulation fast?
Non-vacuum cleaner tips would be more actionable for me currently, but please do share your ways.
So many things factor into this…
Our house became significantly (like 97%) less dusty when our dog passed.
The age of your house
The type of furnace filter
Routine
We have 3 small kids, so we try to tidy up physical stuff (toys, clothes, bags, etc) every day. Dishes too.
Once a week is wiping down nin-kitchen surfaces
Once a month is wiping down baseboards and door trim
I wipe my floor with a damp cloth/mop every two weeks or so. That removes a lot of the dust with relatively little effort.
As someone with ADHD I actually keep a broom leaning against my standing desk and sweep to busy my hands whenever I’m thinking or on a call. Dusting/washing walls simply doesn’t happen in our household due to how many steps are involved - but for most other cleaning we build it into tasks - so as I cook I clean cookware as I go - when I finish showering I squeegee the glass, and there’s cleaning fluid within reach if I notice build up.
These are all really exploits designed to help ADHD people do shit but maybe they’ll help you!
About once a week, though I live in a one bedroom apartment. Deep cleaning is about once a month.
As @xmunk said, cleaning needs to be embedded in other tasks. If you cannot figure out how to embed a given task then you can set it for a fixed schedule. For example, you say that you clean your desk or office on Saturday morning and you have a given set of steps you accomplish.
Another trick I learned from corporate world is to delegate the tasks. It is more manageable to follow up on someone doing it for you than you actually doing it. This can be someone else living with you, or someone you can hire to do. For example, you can hire someone to clean the house every Sunday. This later option could be expensive.
If you want to embed tasks and do it yourself, then you need to make them easy for you, for example, you can overstock cleaning products. Let’s say you have a kitchen microfiber towel that hangs nearby and a dedicated cleaning product at reach. You consider that a meal (launch or dinner) equals, fetching the ingredients, cooking, eating and cleaning dishes, putting away dishes, and finally cleaning them. If you don’t clean dishes then you consider you did not finish your dinner.
Same thing for the bathroom, you need cleaning tools at reach when you are in the bathroom, don’t reuse kitchen stuff to clean the bathroom. Then when you shower, you clean the bathtub, the mirror, the sink, your underwear, wipe the floor, etc.
Same thing for the bathroom, you need cleaning tools at reach when you are in the bathroom, don’t reuse kitchen stuff to clean the bathroom.
Bleh, this reminded me of a housemate who insisted that buying two of a cleaning product was a waste of money and space and then routinely lose them. Very annoy. Big fan of keeping stuff for cleaning a space around that space instead of the other side of the house.
If you have HVAC, make sure the filter is replaced regularly and try running a higher MERV filter.
we’ve got a super tiny apartment.i clean constantly, and dust isn’t much of an issue cause just about every surface sees constant use.
I pay for a cleaning service to come through quarterly. My partner does most of the home maintenance stuff. I’ll do dishes when I cook, but she likes to handle it when she cooks and I’m ok with that because she got mad at me enough times for asking her not to do them before she moved in and they were my dishes. Otherwise, if you see a mess, clean it up. This applies to stuff that got forgotten the night before, vomit from the kitty who sometimes pukes, etc.
The quarterly deep cleaning take care of mopping the hard floors, dusting everything, whatever else.
If you’ve got central HVAC: replace your air filters. Consider going for the high-grade HEPA ones, too.
I’m thinking about hiring a cleaning service. I’m lazy and some things haven’t been cleaned properly in years.
I have dust mite allergies. 2 most important changes I did were:
(1) no carpets, no curtains, only tile floors.
(2) and I love my robot vaccuum. They do 80% of the work, daily, whilst I’m away.
- 1 for using the word whilst betwixt daily and I’m.
Do you have dust mite resistant sheet covers, that was the biggest improvement for me
I would like to say I use a heavy-duty dry swiffer on the floor (wood) every other day, but honestly maybe twice a week. It gets tons of dust and cat hair and it’s quiet and fast. I have an old fashioned feather duster that does a decent job on shelves of books and knickknacks without moving them, and fascinates the cat. I have a wet mop but don’t use it often. I put MERV13 filters in my HVAC, but I realized the suction was lifting the nearby ceiling tiles instead, so I taped them down.
Consider what contributes to dust in your home: I don’t go out much, and can’t track in mud, but I live over the garage in my apartment building, over a very busy street, and have sliding-glass balcony doors for windows, so a lot of my dust is tires and exhaust. Also pollen year-round because SoCal, and of course cat and myself shedding. Litterbox dust too, at least she’s not a big digger. I don’t have laundry machines in my unit but I imagine they’d make lint dust. You might not be able to change things that add grime, but it helps you feel less like it’s your fault.
When I worked in a china shop, we wiped down every item on every shelf with Windex (spray your paper towels, not what you’re cleaning) every day. But I was getting paid for that. It makes a huge difference, along with knowing someone else will notice.
But I was getting paid for that. It makes a huge difference, along with knowing someone else will notice.
This is where we struggle. We are both tidy as can be at work. I go to new places all the time and leave them in much better shape than I found them. Anyone who has been in a lot of data/comm closets and server rooms can tell you that they are often neglected to the point of ridiculousness. My wife does pretty much all the cleaning at the physical therapy clinic where she works, even though that is not in her job description.
But our house is a mess. We have four cats, two with long hair. I’m usually gone all week so that leaves most of the work to my wife. I try to clean the bathroom when I’m home (toilet and sink at least). I’ve turned the “dining room” table into my resupply stockpile between trips. Most of the stuff there is used but it looks terrible.
Being paid makes such a difference in our attitudes towards cleaning.
Four cats and your jobs, you guys are definitely doing this on Hard Mode!
Maybe you could figure out some sort of rewards system, like cleaning the home => delivery dinner. And of course if you notice something is clean and you didn’t do it, voice your joy!
Absolutely, I thank her all the time for cleaning. It’s pretty fair I think. I work a lot more hours, she works pretty much 40 a week. And when I’m home I do dishes, laundry, clean litter boxes, etc.
We considered a cleaning service but we’re trying to put a down payment on a house so her mom can come live with us. We spent a lot of money on Christmas for the kids (her sister’s), but we always do. We’re getting there.
Once we have something that we’re working to own, not rent, maybe we will feel differently about cleaning.
That’s all good! From experience, owning vs. renting doesn’t help much to make cleaning any more enjoyable, at least not after the first week. But at least if you decide you just can’t deal with some aspect, you can change it.
buildings are designed to be closed. its a horrible design thats irreversibly invested upon.
What use are buildings if they aren’t closed spaces? If they’re open, then you’re open to the elements and/or wild animals, and at that point it’s not a shelter.
I live near beach, it’s pleasant year round. Much of my living space is permanently open to the elements, the rest of it has sliding/french doors and large windows that are open most of the time the dwelling is occupied.
It’s definitely a shelter.
That said, stuff from outside sometimes gets inside. I clean, no biggie.
Making sure there’s no gaps around your HVAC air filter is a good start. Air should only flow through the filter. I like to put duct tape around the sides of of it, forming a seal around the grill so that no air leaks around the sides. Buy one with a MERV rating of 9-12 to minimize dust and pollution. Don’t go any higher than that (and avoid HEPA) unless you don’t mind a higher power bill and slightly more stress on your system.
During the times of the year when you’re not running A/C or heat, change the fan setting from “Auto” to “Circulate” so that it clicks on for a few minutes every hour or so. This will help keep the air clean.
If your air quality is really bad, you can always suppliment your HVAC system with a dedicated air purifier. You don’t need anything fancy or expensive; a box fan with 4 HEPA filters taped to it is among the cheapest and most effective ways to clean the air.
Don’t live near dirt, wind or rain. Don’t bring cardboard into the house. Don’t allow animals in the house, including humans. Keep the house temperature over 2000.
Keep the house temperature over 2000.
Only fire may cleanse this dirty world around us.
Now I have a layer of ash, what now?
