Or ways to remove that accumulation fast?
Non-vacuum cleaner tips would be more actionable for me currently, but please do share your ways.
I wait until it starts getting noticable. Then I spend an hour cleaning - prioritizing the stuff that I’d be most embarrassed for a guest to see. After an hour the house is usually back below noticable levels of dirty. It’s never pristine but at least I have a facade of being a functional adult.
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?
Is there dust on the ash?
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.
I also suck at this. There is a lazy way though you’ll have to accept a certain look. My great grandmother had doilies everywhere. Every surface was covered. Most nearly completely, a few of the bigger tables just had a small one. Once a week she would collect them all and wash them. I didn’t realize till much later in life that the purpose they served was to collect dust to keep it off your surfaces.
I wonder if something more aesthetically passing to the modern eye would be as effective or if the intricate lace is important to the function.
I don’t agree on the HEPA level sterility. Dust is not a nuclear waste.
Dust tends to accumulate in quiet areas, like corners and under furniture where air currents from movement don’t disturb it.
Just keep those areas clean with a dustpan and the whole remains tolerable. Although rugs need to be taken outside and beaten from time to time.
Oh shit, dust exists.
Well the way to avoid dust is to not have any soft furnishings including carpets and rugs because they shed fibres that form dust, not have any clothing, because that also sheds fibres and forms dust, not have any skin because that sheds and forms dust, also have no hair, pets, unsealed surfaces, open windows, wear outside shoes inside, etc etc…
But if the above sounds too tricky then yeah the alternative is you just have to vacuum, mop and clean. I hoover several times a week, my partner dusts roughly weekly. It sucks. Entropy is a cruel mistress. But the upside is, having less dust in the house a) looks cleaner, b) is better for your respiratory system. So it’s worth doing, especially if you have someone in the house with something like asthma that would make them more sensitive.
I used to have a very large air filter standing in the corner of my room. It wouldn’t eliminate the need to vacuum, but it would reduce the dust in the air and make it less noticeable. I got rid of it because the filter cartridges were sorta discontinued/really expensive
Kipple is unavoidable, but an air filter helps a lot more than you think.
Also if you have pets, might be worth it to get a robot vacuum. Even the 3+ year old models are still great.
Can confirm. With a dog who sheds enough hair to build a statue of himself every week, a robot vacuum has been a great help. Just make sure to get one with a self-emptying bin, or your gonna be emptying it yourself after every lap around the house, and it’ll be more tedious than just vacuuming yourself.
I really want one that self-empties, seems so convenient. After my current one dies, I’ll def get one.
Don’t have dogs. Don’t have woodburners. Don’t have horses. In fact, don’t live any kind of outdoorsy life if you want a dust-free home.
My home is dusty. I decided that the above was more important to me.
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.
What would be an alternative design thst provides shelter?
Daily sweep with a duster on the areas that get dusty. It helps me relax so it doesn’t feel like a chore. I have a few microfiber hand towels I attach to a Swiffer. The floors get wiped once a day. In my mind I’m playing hockey so it’s also fun to do.
I don’t know if this is true or not but supposedly having a humidifier helps with the dust accumulation. It lingers longer in the air if the air is very dry. Moisture brings it down. I could be wrong and that could be a thing I made up entirely to keep a humidifier running all day,
It depends on the level of humidity. In really humid areas, the dust basically fuses to surfaces rather than sitting on top of it. It’s a lot more annoying to clean.
Before someone visits.
This is the truth. The pandemic really messed up my house because we stopped cleaning when people stopped coming over, and now it is so bad that we still don’t have people coming over. Add to that having a kid who doesn’t want to ever get rid of any of her old toys, and 2 parents trying hard to not let depression win… I don’t think we’ll ever have a clean house again.
If you have the means, I highly suggest hiring a cleaner to help out. You can find them relatively cheap, under $100.
having a kid who doesn’t want to ever get rid of any of her old toys
Do it for her then. I purge and donate my child’s toys every couple of months. It would be chaos otherwise.
wow, I can’t imagine randomly losing your possibly favorite toys every couple of months would have any sort of effect on a person when they become an adult. How many toys are you buying your kids throughout the year?!? Just get them proper storage and explain to them their items need to fit into it (shelves, toy chests. etc). Let them decide which items when it gets too much, you’re gonna have a hoarder on your hands when they get older if they always fear losing their items or never learn to let go of things they don’t need anymore.
Our kid is kinda spoiled and also needs her stuff purged every now and then. It’s pretty easy to tell which toys she cherishes and which ones have been sitting in pieces in the bottom of a tub for the last 6 months. I’m sure most people that do this will get their kid involved in the process. Hoarding can also lead to lasting effects as an adult. Imagine what their friends and classmates think about the clutter when they see or hear about it.
Ok let me ask my two year old what he thinks. He responds very well to reason.
That’s… how children learn?
I will encourage ya to try making the effort wherever and whenever you can. Even just five minutes today can save half an hour weeks down the line.
I’ve a friend from high school whose parents are disabled and struggle with keeping up with the routine chores, and she herself suffers from bad depression and executive dysfunction.
Their house is in such a state now that we’d need to get our entire friend group up there to spend multiple days across multiple weeks to get it cleaned, organized, and fixed up. Flies everywhere, food rotting in the fridges, pet hair and dust everywhere, the works. It’ll be doable, but it’s gonna be a whole thing we gotta do.
Hope I’m not shaming ya here, I promise that ain’t my intent here - just hoping that our situation can inspire somebody else to prevent themselves ending up in the same spot.
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.
Do you have dust mite resistant sheet covers, that was the biggest improvement for me
- 1 for using the word whilst betwixt daily and I’m.
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!
