Please help this clueless bachelor eliminate (or at least minimize) the scourge of his life: HOUSE DUST

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Lepanto

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House dust…I hate the stuff!!! :mad:

First of all, I live no where near a quarry, and I do not live near a dirt road, yet I can dust a room, and a day or two later my furniture is covered with it again! 😦 I’ve lived in different houses and the dust still just appears out of seemingly nowhere (yes, I know it’s airborne…but sheesh!)

I’ve even tried an experiment. Last week, I placed a small table in the middle of a room with a hard-wood floor (no carpets), left the furnace off, and closed the windows and the door. Nobody entered the room. Two days later, I went into the room, and the table was covered with dust! 😦

Where does it come from? But more importantly, how can I minimize or eliminate it? :confused:

I’m not a Martha Stewart, and I’ve never even been inside a Bed Bath and Beyond store, so I need help here!
 
Try to clean the air conditioning/furnace vents, or try cleaning your air filter and see if that works.

Also, try using Swiffer dusters that capture dust, not move it around (I actually use the off-brand and they work just as well).
 
I like clean & tidy too. After a good dusting & sweeping, mop with a little pine sol or whatever you use. I find that this helps a little. Note I said “little.” The only way to really solve the problem is to hermatically seal your house 😃 Sorry pal 😉
 
Have you heard of the DustMeister? It’s a machine; I don’t think you can buy it; you have to rent it from one of those places that rents yard equipment and carpet shampooers. It’s pretty cool. You strap the tank or cylinder on your back and aim this long nozzle - they come in varying sizes and lengths to get under and around stuff - and literally vaporize the dust. It comes with a lot of warnings, of course, as you would imagine, and not just because of the chemicals. You don’t want to aim it at anyone or even anything solid for that matter. I’ve heard it can take the grain right out of wood floors; it’s just that powerful. But, it solves the dust problem.

And I’m so kidding. But don’t we wish we had one?
 
*Put a tablecloth over it, and you won’t see it. 😃

In all seriousness I second Fickle’s advice. *
 
Get a shop-vac. www.shopvac.com

They capture dust that other vaccum cleaners don’t.

I had an apartment that was always dusty until I borrowed my step-father’s shop-vac. Turns out there was a very very fine powder that regular vacuums couldn’t catch but the cartrage filter (pictured below) cleaned it for good! (I’m not talking about the ‘ultra-filter’ just the regular filter that comes standard).

[SIGN]http://www.shopvac.com/images_accessories/90304.jpg[/SIGN]

Anyway, after using the shop-vac my apartment wasn’t dusty anymore, and I had fewer alergies, better sleep, more energy and well anyway… get a shop-vac!

There’s only three downsides
  1. When people realize how amazing my shop-vac is they always want to borrow it.
  2. Since it doesn’t have motorized bristles it takes a bit of strength to tackle a huge carpeted area.
  3. The women in my life ask me to do it for them! 🙂
 
I have learnt to accept it as a part of my life.

I remember from computer tuning that if your air exhaust exceeds your air intake or the other way round, then you get dust under your case. Get a fan blowing in the window’s direction from the opposing wall and see what happens? 😛
 
Check your vacuum cleaner!

I had an old Oreck vacuum cleaner - loved it - it was lightweight, easy to maneuver, etc. It broke after 18 years, so I purchased a new Bissel “pet” model - designed for pet hair. Instead of bags, it has a cup that I can empty after every vacuuming. I then realized I never really loved my Oreck - as this Bissell showed me (literally, by the stuff in the cup) how much dust and dirst the Oreck left behind! :eek: I vacuumed and vacuumed with the Bissel until no more dust came out of the carpet…and guess what?!? The amount of dust that settles on my other surfaces has dramatically decreased! 👍
 
You gotta vacuum up HIGH. Get in the corners of the ceiling, above drapes, tops of windows and doors, and also vacuum your furniture! If the furniture is dusty, then every time you sit on it you;re going to get a cloud of dust poof out of it. And speaking of drapes/curtains, they need vacuuming and washing too.

Always clean top to bottom and have the windows open too when you do this.

If you’re so inclined, you might treat yourself to having a maid service come and do a very thorough cleaning, once a year deep clean type deal, where they wash the walls and everything. I can guarantee you’ll be dust free after that, for awhile anyway:p
 
Dust and clean the AC vents and change your filter ON SCHEDULE!
Dust and clean the walls (seriously) with a dust-capture product (swiffer is good).
Consider repainting your walls if the paint is sloughing off in particles.
Remove as much fabric from the room as possible… it traps dust. Curtains, carpets, etc.
Consider getting a hepa air filtration system.

I’m very allergic to dust (I get allergy shots, so that’s improved), but we’ve been overhauling our house to eliminate all the sources. We took out ALL the carpet in the house, installed hardwood flooring upstairs, clean the AC vents on a monthly basis. We still get dust, but it’s manageable.
 
I appreciate all the tips, but please bear in mind my experiment:
Lepanto said:
Last week, I placed a small table in the middle of a room with a hard-wood floor (no carpets), left the furnace off, and closed the windows and the door. Nobody entered the room. Two days later, I went into the room, and the table was covered with dust! 😦
Click to expand...
The room had been cleaned, no carpets in the room, no furnace, no AC, door and windows closed, nobody entered the room during the two days of the experiment, etc. Yet the table was still layered with dust two days later.
 
Lepanto said:
I appreciate all the tips, but please bear in mind my experiment:

The room had been cleaned, no carpets in the room, no furnace, no AC, door and windows closed, nobody entered the room during the two days of the experiment, etc. Yet the table was still layered with dust two days later.
Click to expand...
Hmmm… well, even if the furnace was off, are the ducts leaky? You may want to have the ducts professionally vacuumed/cleaned.

Also, if the hardwood floors haven’t been finished in a while, or the paint is old, there could be paint/urethane sloughing off…?? 🤷
 
“Lepanto” By any chance, do you have pets? Indoor dogs, cats… etc. The reason I ask… is because household dust is greatly increased by the presence of pets.

Now this is reeeeeeeeeeally gross and icky. :frighten: But true. Part of the content of household dust… is from shed skin cells. I know… GROSS. I just made myself sick, by reminding myself. lol. Anyway… animals will increase the problem. So… it might help to keep “Fido” and “Fluffy” out of specific rooms.

Our cat, Spooky… has only limited access to the bedrooms for this reason. Also… I can’t say ENOUGH for a Dyson vacuum cleaner. They are really expensive (it took me several months to pay ours off… on credit)… but 100% worth the cost. Those things pick up dust you can’t even SEE (until it’s in the canister, that is).

Hope this helps.
 
It’s not just pets. It’s also human skin cells.

There’s also the matter of where you live. The presence of particulate matter in the air, the humidity, the presence of agriculture nearby, the presence or absence of of natural fauna… All these will affect your home no matter how well you clean.
 
MarieVeronica said:
“Lepanto” By any chance, do you have pets? Indoor dogs, cats… etc. The reason I ask… is because household dust is greatly increased by the presence of pets.

Now this is reeeeeeeeeeally gross and icky. :frighten: But true. Part of the content of household dust… is from shed skin cells. I know… GROSS. I just made myself sick, by reminding myself. lol. Anyway… animals will increase the problem. So… it might help to keep “Fido” and “Fluffy” out of specific rooms.

Our cat, Spooky… has only limited access to the bedrooms for this reason. Also… I can’t say ENOUGH for a Dyson vacuum cleaner. They are really expensive (it took me several months to pay ours off… on credit)… but 100% worth the cost. Those things pick up dust you can’t even SEE (until it’s in the canister, that is).

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Nope…I have no pets. Also, the room where I ran the experiment is my least used room in the entire house. I hardly ever go in there – and I wasn’t in there during the entire two days of the test.

I realize that I can keep cleaning and vacuuming the dust – but my goal is prevention so I don’t have to clean in the first place! 👍
 
Lil_Cat said:
Try to clean the air conditioning/furnace vents, or try cleaning your air filter and see if that works.

Also, try using Swiffer dusters that capture dust, not move it around (I actually use the off-brand and they work just as well).
Click to expand...
More to the point, buy a more expensive filter that traps dust, mites and other allergens. We have a cat and hardwoods so dust gets bad. However I always know when to change the filters because it builds up much more quickly. I use the 3M filters the densest ones I can find, lol.

Joe
 
You’re not going to be able to get rid of dust. Ever. Accept that fact.

My advice is to find a “level of dust” that you are willing to live with and do what is necessary to keep your “dust level” at your tolerable level. Choose a few of the excellent posts in this thread to implement to keep dust at your tolerable level.

And then forget about it. Keep in mind that we humans are dust. Forgive me, but I’m 52 years old today (it’s my birthday), and I think that obsessing about dust is silly. Dust won’t hurt you (unless you have a severe allergy). Dust is not worth spending a lot of time, money, and energy over. There are people in this world who live in filth because they are poor or oppressed. Worry about those people.
 
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