Spring Cleaning Tip: Cleaning Dusty Blinds

Blinds have a bad habit of collecting dust and unfortunately, that dust isn’t the easiest thing to get rid of. To bring your blinds back to a state of cleanliness, you could take the tedious approach and wipe each slat by hand or you could make the job easier on yourself and let a pair of tongs wrapped in microfiber cloths help you complete the task.

For this task you will need:
– a pair of tongs
– two (or more) microfiber cloths
– four elastic bands
– a spray bottle filled with water or a gentle cleaning solution (optional)

Once you have collected the items, wrap a microfiber cloth around each arm of the tongs, securing the cloths to the tongs with the elastic bands. While dry microfiber cloths are usually sufficient for dusting blinds, if you feel like the job may require a little extra cleaning power, then spray a small amount of the water or gentle cleaning solution on each of the cloths before proceeding.

After you have assembled your makeshift cleaning instrument, head on over to your dusty blinds and run the tongs along each slat one at a time to remove any dust. Continue cleaning in this manner until your blinds have been fully cleaned. To prevent any loose dust from resettling in areas that you’ve already cleaned, start your cleaning at the top of the blinds and then work your way down.

If at some point during the cleaning process you notice the microfiber cloths are overly dusty, you will need to deal with the problem before continuing. Otherwise, you’ll just smear the dust around, rather than remove it. Thankfully, you have several options for dealing with dusty cloths.

One way to deal with overly dusty cloths is to take the tongs outside, remove the cloths, and shake out the excess dust. Once the excess dust has been removed, you can wrap the cloths back around the tongs and resume your cleaning. This method for dealing with excess dust typically only works if you didn’t previously wet the cloths.

If you did wet the cloths, then give them a quick rinse in the sink whenever they become overly dusty. Once the water runs clean, simply wring out the cloths and re-wrap them around the tongs. If you have chosen to spray the cloths with a gentle cleaning solution, this will also need to be reapplied after rinsing out the cloths. You’re now ready to resume your cleaning

A final option for dealing with overly dusty cloths is to replace the dusty cloths with a clean set whenever you notice the current set has become too dusty. Unfortunately, this method only works if you have some additional microfiber cloths at the ready.

Once you’ve finished cleaning your blinds, toss the dusty microfiber cloths in the laundry and the tongs in the dishwasher. Both the cloths and the tongs will emerge clean after finishing their respective cleaning cycles and will once again be ready for use.