i think when i said that whole "ask me anything" thing i should have kinda said like, hey dudes, ask me anything!!.. except things about cleaning your apartment. i am nothing but honest with you, my now 12 readers (hi!) and it's not like i'm this punk house/hippie commune dwelling creature from the underboards (anymore) but if cleaning-yr-apartment-cleanliness was on the sexuality Kinsey scale, i'd be solidly bisexual. i'd be a 3 out of 6. i totally totally totally see both sides. what i'm saying is that i find you all attractive. wait, no. what i'm saying is that i'm not a complete mess but i'm also def not an expert in cleaning. also, i find you all attractive.
regardless, my goal here is to just pass on my knowledge and try to help...... no matter what (said menacingly with an awkward, cold stare) so i am sure as hell going to try! also, google! i will also google. here's the question:
I need help dealing with dust. When I moved out of my last apartment, I found so much dust hidden in the nooks and crannies of my life and I swore this time it would be different. But it's really not. I know other people dust, like dust the verb, and this sounds like the right solution. But I don't get it. When you dust, doesn't the dust just fly up and settle in other places? Isn't it just a matter of moving dust around indefinitely? Isn't it just fooling yourself? How can I rid my house of dust without feeling like I'm rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Or maybe the air purifiers on the Titanic?
dude, i am so with you. dust, like fuckin' magnets, seems to exist only to inspire the question, "how do they work??" answer: no one knows (untrue), but from my understanding most of household dust is really just your own dead skin cells floating around! isn't that ADORABLE?! so, really, you are just trying to clean yourself up. phrased another way, you are just trying to get rid of you. you are causing your own self angst and agita. how existentially symbolic and wonderful!
also included in dust is hair, dirt, pollen, pet stuffs, spider webs, dust mites and their feces (yum!), lost childhood dreams and possibly some daddy issues. no one wants any of that shit around. let's all form a ragtag posse and murder us some dust!!
my personal way of dealing with it is by utilizing a highly intricate method known as "getting it wet and then picking it up with a paper-towel or sponge or something". what i'll do is spray some windex (or really whatever wet-spray thing i have lying around) on the dusty surface. if i'm feeling saucy, i'll even move items off of the surface to make room for me to wipe it all down but more often than not i do the wipe-around method and no one is the wiser (except people with eyes). this is how i personally "take care" of it. quotes absolutely required as i uh, don't really take care of it. see above re: my cleanliness bisexuality. (omg can you copyright complete jibberish because i can hear the cha-chings from oVa hEaAa)
if you use a duster, i so see yr point. it totally seems like you're just moving it around indefinitely. it feels like a futile and hopeless activity as if it exists only to underline your preconceived notion that we are all just floating along aimlessly, alone and without purpose. but you know me, i don't play that way! when ya roll with me, y'all just gotta know there is hope! based on the findings of the scientific crackteam over at howtogetridofstuff.com (really) this exercise of moving dust from one place to another has a point! in fact it is the point!
they claim that the point of dusting with a duster is to try to get the dust to settle ON TO THE FLOOR where you can then VACUUM IT ALL UP. like, whoa. i know, so crazy. right now i'm all like, is this really a thing? is this really what people do? it's all so mind-blowing. i'm feelin like i missed a v. important memo growing up because i've never once in my life ever heard of this before ever. i feel weirdly cheated but also like i don't really care because my 'get it wet' method has been overall fine for me i think. also, it's called the 'get it wet' method so back up off me you know?
over at howtogetridofthings.com (wtf. I SMELL GANG WAR with howtogetridofstuff.com - who's side you on?!), they suggest dusting at least twice a week, starting up high and working your way down and then vacuuming immediately after so you're not just kicking it all back up again. i guess this dust-then-vacuum thing is really real. if two random websites with amazingly similar names say so, who am i to question? and so, my lovely dust-challenged reader, i guess that's the advice i'm going to give you! dust then vacuum, or, you know, just get it wet!
for some reason i'm now thinkin about how dusty is such a mean name to give your child. i would never name any of you dusty, i swear,
danielle
The "cleaning for dummies without condescending" Bible, Home Comforts, recommends dusting once weekly with a wet dustrag (not a duster, since it just moves stuff around, sorry for being contrary, D!), top to bottom, like recommended above, and then doing the floors (vacumming, handwashing (for real)), or whatever). Then, to keep the really gross dustbunnies, etc from forming, you should do deep cleans monthly, including moving furniture to get underneath it.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds both radical and matronly to set up weekly and monthly cleaning schedules, but let me tell you how liberating it is...