Cleaning our homes feels like a never-ending battle against dust. Although it’s less of an issue in newer properties, we’ve likely all been frustrated at the sheer level of dust that just seems to magically appear.
Hopefully, our top tips for how to keep your home dust-free for longer will help. Bear in mind you’ll never rid your home of it completely, but there’s plenty you can do to reduce it, especially when you can’t just hire cleaners North London.
The Best Ways to Keep Your Home Dust-Free for Longer
This is a collaborative post.
1. Vacuum On and Under Furniture
This might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s easy to ignore hoovering under furniture. However, this is a prime spot for dust to collect, and it can easily get pushed out by a draft or a pet.
Similarly, make sure you hoover the furniture itself, particularly softer items like sofas, mattresses, etc. They can hold onto a lot of dust that gets pushed out when you sit on them.
2. Run an Air Filter
Running an air filter (particularly a HEPA filter) can help to pull airborne dust out of the air before it settles. Dust is made up of all kinds of particles, so you’ll want an air filter that can catch most of them.
This is also a good tip if you suffer from allergies, as a HEPA filter captures 99.97% of airborne matter. Better yet, you can get vacuum cleaners with HEPA filters fitted, allowing you to tackle dust from all angles.
3. Use Throw Covers
Hoovering furniture is one thing, but it can be even more helpful to cover them with throws. This is especially true if you have pets, as the throws will stop marks and hold onto any dust created by pet dander.
Ideally, you’ll want to change them every 3-4 days if you really want to stay on top of dust levels. This frequency will allow the dust enough time to build up but should hopefully minimise the amount that’s then pushed back into the air.
4. Use a Damp Duster
When it comes to actually dusting your home, make sure your duster is damp. You can use furniture polish, but simply rinsing the duster in water is fine. A damp cloth helps to actually hold onto dust rather than kicking it up into the air.
A microfibre cloth is best for this because it won’t create its own dust. Regular fabric sheds fibres, which contribute to what we call dust. Importantly, make sure your cloth is only just damp rather than wet, particularly for untreated wood surfaces.
5. Work Slowly and Methodically
How you dust is as important as the tools you use. Start at the top of each room and work down, as this ensures you capture any dust you’ve knocked off the surface you’re working on. If you’re in a particularly dusty room, you might need to make a second pass over some surfaces.
Also, work slowly. You want to actually catch dust in your cloth rather than knocking it into the air because then it’ll just settle elsewhere. Run your cloth over a surface slowly, flip the cloth over, and then run it back in the opposite direction.
6. Cut Down on Clutter
The amount of stuff you have in a room can impact dust levels, both directly and indirectly. Soft items generate dust by shedding fibres, and decorative stuff on surfaces can affect your motivation to clean, particularly if it means having to move lots of things.
So, minimise the amount of stuff you have in a room. While this isn’t always possible, less stuff simply means fewer things to clean!
7. Localise Your Laundry
As mentioned, fabrics are a major source of dust. To combat this as much as possible, localise your washing, folding, and drying to the smallest space you can. Ideally, this will be a small room with a closed door so you can trap any airborne particles before they enter the rest of your house.
All you’ll want to do laundry-wise in the rest of your house is just put the washing away. A good place to process washing is the kitchen, as this is usually a low-dust room because of the lack of soft surfaces.
Final Thoughts
Keeping your home dust-free does take a bit of work, but the tips above should help you see results fairly quickly. Once you’ve got things under control, consistency and regularity are key if you want a home that’s as free from dust as possible.