Fed up with the amount of dust in your home? Here are nine tips for keeping dust under control and improving the air quality in your home.
There’s no such thing as a “dust free” house. Dust comes from a variety of places, including our skin, pets, shoes, clothing, and outdoors, so it’s inevitably going to be in your home.
You can take steps to reduce the amount of dust in your house though. The tips below can help to improve your home’s air quality, reduce the amount of dust sitting on surfaces, and mean you won’t need to clean so frequently.
How to Reduce Dust in Your House
1. Keep Your Cupboards Tidy
The clothing, linen, towels, and blankets in your cupboards all collect dust. When you open the door, this dust is blown into the air and around your home.
Good organisation is key to keeping dust levels in your home down. Pack items in your cupboards in a way that makes it easy to wipe dust around the items, otherwise cleaning becomes a nightmare. Use plastic storage bags to keep large fabric items that you don’t frequently use, like winter coats.
Tip: Try to avoid putting items on the cupboard floor. You need to be able to vacuum the floor regularly to keep dust away.
2. Clean Your Bedding Often
Dead skin cells are a major contributor to dust, especially in your bedroom. It’s important to change all your sheets, duvet cover, and pillow covers once a week. You can also vacuum the mattress at the same time.
Clean your pillow inners regularly to prevent dust mites. Every 4 to 6 months, you should take them to the dry cleaners or wash them yourself.
3. Vacuum Your House Regularly
Getting into a good routine with your vacuum cleaner is fundamental to reducing the dust in your home. Vacuum heavily trafficked areas of your home regularly (ideally twice per week) and consider getting a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter.
Vacuum the floors and carpets, as well as rugs, pillows, sofas, and other fabrics. Remember to vacuum underneath furniture!
Really get to know your vacuum cleaner and all its different attachments. The soft brush attachment is great for getting dust and pet hair off of windowsills and curtains, and the crevice tool allows you to get into nooks and crannies.
4. Beat Your Rugs the Old-Fashioned Way
Rugs collect a huge amount of dirt, so it’s necessary to give them a thorough cleaning on a regular basis. Take area rugs outside to beat the dust out of them with a sturdy stick before vacuuming.
Tip: Do you have a shag rug? These are dust magnets, so make sure to read our guide to cleaning shag rugs.
5. Use Dust-Busting Technology
Lately, there has been a growing range of products designed to help keep our homes free of dust. Air purifiers, humidifiers, and robot vacuums are all brilliant dust-busting solutions.
Air purifiers that have a HEPA filter remove small particles of dust, pollen, and other pollutants from the air. You can get air purifiers that work in one room or larger models that can purifier the air in your entire house.
If your home’s humidity levels are low, static in the air can cause surfaces to attract dust. Get a humidifier to keep your home’s humidity levels between 40 and 50%. This will help to reduce the dust levels in your home.
A robot vacuum is also brilliant solution for keeping your floors dust-free. You can program the vacuum cleaner to work when you leave the house or at night while you’re sleeping. Robot vacuums have also come a long way since the first models, so they are worth considering if you like the sound of automated cleaning.
6. Dust Your Whole House Regularly
Dusting isn’t as effective as vacuuming, but it’s important for surfaces that your vac can’t easily access.
Clean your blinds regularly using a sock or a special blind cleaning tool to wipe the dust off. Remember to also dust skirting boards, windowsills, and the tops of hanging picture frames and mirrors.
Make sure you dust before you vacuum your home, otherwise dust that’s been stirred into the air will resettle on surfaces.
7. Keep Pets Well Groomed
Pet dander is a major contributor to dust in our homes! Groom your pets often to reduce the amount of hair and dander they shed. Brushing your pet every day at the height of shedding season is important, along with more frequent vacuuming (don’t forget pet beds too!)
Remember to brush your pet outside where the hair and dander cannot blow back into your house.
8. Prevent Dust From Entering Your House
Your first line of defence against dust is stopping it from coming in via your doors and windows.
- Avoid wearing shoes in the house or have a designated pair of house shoes that you only wear inside. This prevents tracking dust and dirt from the outside world into your home.
- Get door mats for all your doors that lead outside. Mats trap dust from your shoes, so it’s important to clean your doormats often.
- Keep doors and windows shut as much as possible. This is especially important during dry, dusty times of the year and when there is a lot of pollen in the air.
- Install dust seals around your windows and doors. A lot of dust can get in under doors and through the gaps in window frames.
9. Organise Your Home to Collect Less Dust
Your interior design choices can make a huge difference when it comes to dust levels inside your home. Consider the following tips to minimize the amount of dust that builds up in your house:
- Declutter your home. The fewer surfaces there are that can collect dust, the better. If your home is organized and free of clutter, it’s much easier to dust and clean.
- Limit the fabrics in your home. Textiles both collect dust and create their own when they shed fibres. Throws, scatter cushions, and other soft furnishings are all dust magnets.
- Choose hard flooring over carpets. Carpets collect heaps of dust, and hard flooring, like tiles, linoleum, or wooden floors, are much easier to clean.
- Choose blinds over curtains. Blinds also collect dust, but they’re easier to wipe down, and they don’t shed fibres, like curtains do.
Conclusion
Keeping your home dust-free does not always have to feel like an uphill battle! If you’re mindful about keeping dust out of your home and you stick to a regular cleaning schedule, you can keep dust levels under control.
If dust build-up is a major problem in your house, consider investing in a robot vacuum cleaner to help you out. An air purifier or humidifier will also help to get rid of the airborne dust in your home.
Do you have any questions about reducing dust in your home? Let us know in the comments section below. You may also want to read our article about how often you should dust.