I clean 2ce a month. I know what kind of cleaning I value and I just do that. I donβt dust oftenβ¦ but I use an air filter.
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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.
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.
If youβve got central HVAC: replace your air filters. Consider going for the high-grade HEPA ones, too.
Its always an ongoing thing. We clean as we go.
Shoes stay on our front door mat and don't come inside.
Fake feather dusters (or swiffer) to clean tricky stuff and under things.
Swifter the hard surfaces every other day.
Damp cloth to wipe down a surface that is showing dust.
Frying stuff means using hood extractor even if it is not visbly needed, because without it we would later find soot/dust all over certain areas that are colder like window sills ...the aerosolized oil/soot would travel and drop by convection near windows and baseboards.
Carpets are bad for trapping dust but also they are good at creating dust from broken carpet fibers. These get weekly vacuuming and twice yearly steam cleaning--the water coming out is always murky brown even though the carpet looks relatively clean.
buildings are designed to be closed. its a horrible design thats irreversibly invested upon.
What would be an alternative design thst provides shelter?
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.
I run my robot vacuum every day, just because it's possible and it always manages catch some amount of dust every day.
A large part of why robot vacuums are great is because they decouple basically all effort from the task, making it easy to do it frequently and hence keep up with it. The same applies for dishwashers.
I have dogs, I wish it could detect when it's full more easily. I think it does it by weight or suction resistance. May even be nice to have a built in trash compactor - or I should just get the one with the bin/wash base station.
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,