Recently I did the post on the big clean, the hand washing verses the HE washer and water study etc. I decided to do another experiment.
I like to know about things, most anything when it comes to the reason for it or how something works. My husband is steady and I am like the bunny hopping around. I don't know if I will every outgrow this, I guess when my body gives out.
My experiment this time is dust. I have mentioned (complained) to my husband, my daughter and my friend Catherine multiple times that it seems more dusty. I have to clean the fans more often and there is always something to dust and when I am not looking dust balls form and float under the furniture.
By the way the photo above is to show there are times that the dish draining area is empty.
But then breakfast happens, dinner and so on.
So day one I started with an empty vacuum. I decided to vacuum, dust and clean the bathrooms "daily" instead of a few times a week and I would do this for seven days for the study. It did not take but a few days to get into a routine and without fail, got up did my normal early morning things such as pack my husbands lunch box, get him out the door for work and I went to the closet and got out the vacuum.
We have two vacuums, a small vacuum and this larger one. I use the smaller one for certain things such as getting under the bed and furniture and this one for the rugs.
This is the cleaned off filter for the small vacuum.
I know this is not something you want to see but this is one day of stuff on the floor and I had vacuumed the day before!
So I used the large vacuum and cleaned off the small vacuum filter to make sure to save all the debris from the floor for seven days.
This is my small vacuum but is bigger than this photo looks. What I found is by keeping everything vacuumed it did not have a chance to go airborne.
Each day I took a damp rag and went over all the furniture, headboard, lamp shades etc. The first day was probably the most dust etc I got on the rag. Each of the other mornings there was just slight dust, nothing much at all and even if it did not look like it needed it, I dusted it anyway.
This is the embarrassing but real life dust study that I have decided to show and not hid the dust under the rug as they say.
This is 7 days of what comes off our floors. This is also what goes airborne when we walk around in our house, or turn on fans or our air units come one. We have non carpeted floors and carpet would probably hold some of this down but it will go down into the carpet.
I absolutely do not know what all is in this dust but I know there is pet hair, our hair, and stuff that comes off most anything in our house. It just happens even though I clean a lot.
This gritty stuff is what rubs down into carpet and rugs. We take our shoes off when we come in, my husband does not always when he has his work shoes on but I do take mine off each time.
I have watched everything above the floor during the seven days. The fans have remained very clean, the places that dust normally collects quickly is not there.
So my theory is floor dust goes airborne and if I keep the floors clean daily the house should be less dusty. My routine now, is vacuum, dust and clean the bathrooms each day and it takes 45 minutes for me to do this not rushing.
This is a mix I make for cleaning the bathrooms. Grated soap, washing soda and borax, equal parts, it is the same for laundry washing mix.
I could just use plain soap but I like the scrubby texture this mixture makes to clean the bathroom.
Sprinkle it over the sink area... and wipe down with a cloth.
Same for the toilet and swish with a toilet brush and wipe down the seat area with the cloth from the sink cleaning.
I like to clean the mirrors and glass with plain lye soap such as Grandma's Lye soap or Stewarts crafts lye soap or homemade soap.
Just rub the soapy rag over the mirror...
Go back over with a rinsed out rag...
And polish with a dry cloth. The glass will be beautifully clean. Is their easier ways to clean glass? Yes there is but this way there are no chemicals to breath and it gets so clean.
Do the same for any glass...
And it will make your early morning sun shine through clearly. Now I can see dirt on that window screen and after the pecan leaves fall the outside of these windows and screens will get a good cleaning with lye soap.
So it looks like my new routine will be keeping dust and dirt off the floor so I don't have to do as many deep cleanings. It is kind of like preventative medicine.
I really don't mind this 45 minute cleaning because having these three things done makes the rest of the day go better. Now I am off to do laundry and oh by the way, I have decided to mop twice a week and I think that will be easier since the floors are cleaner :)
I will always keep trying new things the old way. Grandma Donna
