Deep cleaning or dusting the blinds in your home is a great spring or fall cleaning chore! Sometimes even the best cleaning routines overlook blinds, but it’s a good idea to dust them often—or at the very least, deep clean them in the spring and fall.
Depending on the sort of cleaning your blinds need, it might be a fairly quick chore or one that takes extra time. Either way, a thoughtful and thorough cleaning benefits your home and cuts back on the amount of dust in the air. Horizontal blinds are a natural dust trap, and after a while of the settled dust on the surface, the heat that comes in from the windows bakes it onto the blinds. Sometimes a quick, simple dusting isn’t enough to clean the blinds.
Dusting Techniques
Sometimes, all that blinds really need is a firm dusting. Examine your blinds to determine if they should be hand wiped or dusted. If the dust is incredibly loose when you swipe your finger across, then chances are your blinds just need to be dusted; but if the dust is stubborn and clings to the blinds, they need hand wiped.
A dusting tool with a long body (such as a lamb’s wool duster) is perfect for pulling dust off of horizontal blinds. Holding your duster straight up, lay it onto the top most blind with gentle pressure, and then firmly run the duster across the surface of the blind to pull up the dust. Next, holding the duster horizontally, lay the duster against the blinds near the top, and pull the duster down to the bottom. Begin on one side of the blinds, and work your way across, dusting in sections. Continue dusting in sections until you have finished the entire surface of the blinds.
Hand Wiping Techniques
More often than not, blinds need more than just a little bit of dusting to get them spick and span! Heat and light from the window can “bake on” dust and make it necessary to handwipe each of the blinds, individually, to work up the dust and grime. If your blinds need this intensive, detailed clean you will need the following:
· clean rags
· cleaner
· step ladder (depending on the height of the blinds)
Gather your supplies, and go to the first set of blinds you intend to clean. Begin with the top most blind, and step up onto your step ladder if you cannot reach the highest point of the blinds. Taking your cleaner, spray the blinds with just enough of the solution to help loosen the dust from the surface of the blinds. Next, take your rag and begin to work up the dust from the surface from the topmost blind, and clean from one side of the blind to the other. After you have finished one blind, begin cleaning the next, just below the one you have just cleaned. Gradually work your way down, wiping each individual blind as you go. Take care not to push down on the blinds too much so that you don’t pull them all down.While hand wiping blinds is time consuming work, it is the most efficient and detailed way to help keep your home cleaner than ever!