The house I'm renting for the year has many oversized windows with equally oversized aluminum blinds. When it came to dusting them, the task seemed daunting and I kept putting it off. That is, until the obvious hit me:
I at first could only imagine dusting them one louver of a blind at a time in the open position. Why? I'm really not sure (lack of vision?), but just the thought of it made me want to weep. Finally, it hit me to close the blinds and dust them in large areas at once. Here's how it went:
1: Close the blinds so the convex side is facing you, as this is the surface that generally faces up and gathers all of the dust.
2: Using a dry ostrich feather duster, dust horizontally starting at the top of each blind and working your way down. It's important to use a feather duster so the individual feathers can reach up between louvers and dust their entire surfaces.
3: Reverse the blinds and repeat on the concave side, too.
4: Sweep up afterward, as some dust (especially if it's as excessive a buildup as it was on my blinds) will fall to the floor in this process.
5: Shake the dust off of the duster outside (or wash it gently with water and air dry).
We tried wet dusting with a wash rag first, but this tended to smear the dust and the blinds didn't easily come clean. Concerns about a feather duster picking up dust? Make sure your duster is made with ostrich feathers, as they are actually composed of tiny little finger-like nodules that are really good at holding dust - not just pushing it around.
How do you dust the blinds in your home? Please share in the comments section below.
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Take them down, spray them in the shower, hang to dry, rehang them.
If you have aluminum or plastic blinds, take them down and wash them in the shower. Doing this allows you to get all of the excess build up of grease or dirt off of them with a good soaping.
Dusting them as described in the post is for the regular part of your cleaning routine. Once they're built up with grease or dirt, you'll need to follow argylecardigan's advice.
Use an eyeglasses cloth, something flannel or microfiber. close the blinds and run it sideways, then close them oppositely and do it again. When you cloth is full, rinse it off and throw it in your dryer with another load, the lint trap gets all the dust and the dryer gives it a static charge, much like a swiffer duster. If you use a feather duster you're just throwing all the dust back into the air.
This is something I've been looking for answers on as well. The most commonly given advice being put them in the shower/tub. However, we have three of these blinds that are too large to even fit into the shower tub.
I've been thinking of taking them down to the local car self-wash and using the soap and soft car brush there. May look a little silly while another car waits to be washed in my bay, but I can't think of an alternative than hiring a professional at some ungodly rate.
Any other ideas?
In an moment of desperation and only an hour before the final walk-thru without the blinds being cleaned (I'm not sure if I was hoping they'd clean themselves or that the landlord wouldn't check them.. naive!), I went out and bought new ones. Tore down and left the dirty (but in good condition) ones at the curb, and replaced them with the sparkling new, albeit crappy-and-I'd-never-personally-buy-them-for-my-own-home-if-I-had-the-choice blinds. I only had three windows (basement unit), so the price wasn't overwhelming, and I justified it by saving my sanity. Wouldn't recommend it for lots of windows or if you're terribly strapped for cash. But worked in a pinch!
brushing the blinds while they're closed is a pretty good way, I agree.
However,
there are brushes designed for blinds...
http://www.twenga.com/dir-Supplies,Household-cleaning-tools,Mini-blind-brush
and even vacuum cleaner attachments...
http://www.vacsrus.com/CartGenie/prod-899.htm
but, since most blinds can be easily removed by opening the front panels on each side, it really is smarter to wash em down in the shower. The brushes are good only if you can brush often enough to keep grim from building up.
@Woodstu -
Talk about a waste of money and needless landfill.
...Couldn't be bothered to vacuum them with the brush attachment?
I have wooden blinds, not aluminium, so maybe it´s a little different situation (shower is out of the question!). I don´t recommend the feather duster, since I´m allergic and it would be a total disaster for my noise and lungs...
The fast way to do it is close the blinds and vaccum to remove dust on both sides, using the small brush attachment on the vacuum cleaner. For a really deep cleaning, I open the blinds and spray with a cleaning product (for wood in this case) and use a pair of thick cotton gloves on each blind, using my fingers just as the special brush for blinds posted above.
Anyway, it´s not a pretty work to do...
The Swifter Dusters are magical, made blind cleanup very easy.
vacuum brush is a cleaner way to do it, but it's a smaller brush. Still the way I go.
I SO don't want to think about this. I'll just draw them up.
I'm sorry if I am asking a dumb question, but how do you take them down to wash? I recently moved to a place with LOTS of blinds, and I am afraid of even touching them for fear of breaking/twisting them.
This is why I prefer shades over blinds.
Yep, Swiffers are awesome.
I had trouble with the blinds becoming bent/creased when I tried to vacuum them-they were so cheap, ugh- hate these things!
Never thought to take them down and put them in the shower....what a pain but I guess if it means getting your deposit back, it's worth it.
I'm with TriciaRose-I leave them up as much as possible and just draw the curtains for privacy/light dampening.
We had those types of blinds in our rental too but I had the landlord take them out and I put up curtains. We can't re-use all the curtains or rods now that we're going to move, but it was completely worth it. Using $4.99 ikea rods really helps keep the price manageble.
The last blinds I cleaned were in my living quarters in Iraq.
Standard cheap blinds. The shower in the latrine had a handheld shower head, so I took them down, hung them up in the shower and sprayed every inch of them with convex side facing me, then with concave side facing me. Used paper towels to wipe dry and avoid water spots or collecting more dust.
I agree with the shower option 100%. Living in Arizona (dusty dry Arizona) we'd have to do this once a month to keep the grime off...and out of our house!
@pomuk - My advanced apologies for my lack of terminology about blinds! :)
Okay, here we go...If there is a valance (a horizontal piece going across the top that looks "decorative" or hides hardware), it will probably be clipped on with plastic clips. Remove it from the clips and once you take it down you will see that the blind slats and strings hang from a horizontal metal piece (that the valance covers up).
At either end of the horizontal metal piece you should see these little box-shaped things that are holding it up. Each end of the horizontal metal piece goes inside one of the box-shaped things. The front underside of the box-shaped things have a latch. You have a press a piece in while pulling the front side of the box-shaped thing forward and up. The box-shaped thing should open and you should be able to pull the horizontal metal piece (which is holding up the strings and slats) out of the box-shaped thing. If you do this for all of the box-shaped things, you can just pull the blinds straight out.
If you have an outside installation (usually will be screwed into the wall above the window opening), it might be different but after replacing all the blinds in my house it seems that this is pretty standard, regardless of the installation.
Good luck to you!