Dusting Blinds

I remember hearing a tip a while back about cleaning your blinds using some knit gloves. You know the ones I'm speaking of, you can get them very cheap in the fall and winter and they usually come in sets of three. Anyway, now that I want to find this tip I am at a loss! So, I can't give credit where it might be due. Either way, I didn't come up with this idea on my own, but I tried it today and below is my review of this system. Warning and confession: I rarely dust my blinds so they were very icky and I am humbling myself enough to show it here. Eek!

Here it is, the creeper hand about to go to work on the filthy, dirty, dusty blinds. I started out with one glove and just ran my fingers through the blinds while they were closed.

I tried doing multiple slats at a time, but that proved to be a bit of a challenge if I actually wanted to get all the dust off. So, I went back to the top and bottom side of each slat. This was a daunting task and not very much fun.

Gross, right? But, as you can see it was working. I discovered it actually worked better to run the glove through the blinds when they were open, so I switched to that rather quickly, with much better success.

Another creeper hand picture. Kinda makes me feel like singing "sometimes I feel like, somebody's watching me..." the level of creepiness factor for this picture is over the top for me. A car outside, black gloves peering through the blinds. Yeah...this is definitely a good Halloween post. HA!

I then decided to add the other glove so as to take on double duty and see if I could finish faster. I have 3 very large blinds in my living room, so it wasn't a quick cleaning. It felt like it took way too long. It was better once I was using two gloves, but still. Boring.

The next picture truly shows the uber-grossness factor of how well the dusting worked. My window ledge was NASTY afterward. I would not recommend doing this unless you are planning to vacuum right afterward.

EWWWWWWW!! But, yay for clean blinds!

So, my review is as follows: the dusting works better (and faster) with two gloves, it still left a little trace of dust on the blinds (static and such, I'd assume). I went over it with the wand on my vacuum for finishing touches and that worked wonderfully. This is something I will keep in my cleaning arsenal, although, as you can tell, the likelihood that I will use it again is slim since I don't clean my blinds nearly often enough and we will probably move before they are cleaned again. Ridiculous, I know.

After trying to relocate the article I read that recommended this (again, to no avail), I discovered there are some things that may have made this work a little better and that I will try in the future...you know...if I clean my blinds ever again. One, instead of gloves, try using a dryer sheet - it's supposed to help keep the dust on the sheet instead of spreading over the blinds as much. And two, if you do use the glove (or an old sock), dip it in equal parts distilled vinegar and water to actually clean them and not just dust them. I also saw a recommendation to use a lint roller on closed blinds to remove dust and dirt. I may have to try this as well...

Happy cleaning!