How Often You Should Really Be Dusting Your Home

There are plenty of other household tasks that are harder or messier than dusting. But unlike other chores, dusting is one of the only ones that can irritate allergies and make folks sneeze. It also seems never-ending, causing many people to wonder: how often should I be dusting?

When it comes to household chores, which one is your favorite? Okay, let’s try this a different way: what is your least favorite task? If your answer was “dusting,” and you avoid it like the plague, you’re not alone.

You can avoid dusting as your least favorite chore by calling in TLC Cleaning for reoccurring cleaning services. Our incredible team will tackle all those pesky dust bunnies, so you can spend your time doing the things you love. The answer may seem obvious: any time you see dust piling up, or the sunlight hits under your sofas. But part of you probably wonders if letting your home’s filth accumulate till it’s visible makes you a deadbeat. Let us address your perfectly reasonable concern.

Let’s cut right to the chase; you want to know if your house is clean enough. If the dust in your home is visible to the naked eye, you are not a failure. But there are also some ways you could – and probably should – clean up your act (so to speak).

Dust isn’t just gross; it’s actually the grossest. The particles it’s made from are comprised of everything from dead skin cells, bacteria (think Staph virus-level bacteria), and fungi. If this knowledge doesn’t motivate you to clean more often, we don’t know what will.

Now the rubber meets the road. Prepare yourself for the Holy Grail. At long last, the answer to the eternal question, “How often should I be dusting?”

When you’re adding events and meetings to your calendar, be sure to pencil in an appointment with your duster. When you begin a new month, pick one day to clean those easy-to-reach places where dust accumulates. Baseboards, bookshelves, and picture frames are examples of high-visibility, easy-access dust magnets.

Pick two to four dates out of the year to dust the hard-to-reach places. Places like door frames, ceiling fans, and top shelves don’t always get a lot of attention. They don’t need much attention, either, which is why every three to six months is frequent enough for cleaning.

You might want to set a reminder to dust out-of-the-way spots when you change the batteries in your smoke detector. (Also, this is your reminder that you should be checking the batteries in your smoke detector).

Tying your dusting to fire prevention is a good idea, anyway: dust bunnies are a fire hazard. When dust catches fire, it exacerbates and quickens house fires. That’s right, cleaning isn’t just essential for aesthetic, health, and hygiene reasons; dusting is also a safety issue.

We are throwing around the word “dust” quite a bit here, both as a verb and a noun. We’ve told you what we mean when we talk about dust in your home. But what about when we talk about dusting?

We regret to inform you that there is a right and wrong way to clean the dust in your home. Okay, maybe we are exaggerating a bit. Let’s be more specific here: there is a more effective and less effective way to dust.

Think about what happens when you stir up dust. It goes everywhere, right? When you dust, you want the gross stuff gone from your house, not merely spread around.

Avoid merely moving the dust to different places in your home when you clean. The best tool for eliminating dust is a vacuum due to its speedy efficiency.

Many people are surprised to learn that the least helpful tool is often the iconic traditional duster. Yes, you may have to break up with your duster if you want to deep clean an area. Your grandma’s feather duster mostly moves dust off of one surface right onto another one.

If you aren’t using damp or moist cloths in your dusting routine, you aren’t getting the most out of dusting. Dusting top to bottom helps ensure that you get all the dust as it settles on lower surfaces. Finishing up with a moist cloth helps pick up any leftover dirt and residue missed by the top-to-bottom approach.

Another pro-tip when it comes to effectively removing dust: move in one direction as you clean a room. You guessed it: this method gets rid of the dust, instead of relocating it to other parts of the room.

While you should dust often, don’t feel like you have to do it every day. Think of it this way: you only need to dust the easily-accessible stuff twelve times a year! Depending on when you’re reading this, you may have just a handful of times left before the New Year.

Think of it as a gift to yourself.

Sometimes, depending on your circumstances or the size of your house, even twelve times a year is too much. You may have any number of valid reasons – heck, maybe you just don’t want to do it.

If you want a clean house, but regular dusting just isn’t in the cards, don’t sweat it. You just need to call in the experts.

A professional cleaning service can be a huge blessing to folks who are short on time, energy, or capability. Do something positive for yourself, your home, and your family and consider hiring a cleaning service.

You care about your home, so you want a cleaning service that is going to care about it, too. TLC Cleaning offers residential cleaning, but that’s not all. TLC Cleaning services also include commercial and new construction cleaning, upholstery and rug cleaning, and move-in/out cleaning.

Stop wondering, “How often should I be dusting?” and contact TLC Cleaning for an online estimate. Tell us the kind of service you need and what type of area you want to be cleaned. We’ll figure out how to best deploy our team of caring professionals to get the job done.