Dust Or Don’t

For almost ten years the small residential cleaning business, A Green Clean LLC, served Litchfield County, Connecticut, as my pride and my joy, my baby and my second family, my bread and my butter. I remember delicately training, neh, coaching, amazing women who took true pride in their work but sometimes in order to maintain that pride in each and every monotonous and minuscule task, even the deplorable or seemingly useless ones, took a little…….(ahem) nicely put, coaching. Dusting was one of the most common tasks frequently considered useless, and I know that my gals were no exception, as it’s also the most frequently placed onto the back burner by most my clientele also. Not so often but occasionally, I would even get the client who requested, “Oh, don’t bother with dusting, just get the kitchen, the bathrooms and the floors.” In an effort to understand why we (homeowners) are so apt to forego dusting, and weigh the importance of the task I bring you, Dust or Don’t.

Dust

Just a couple of really COLOSSAL points standing behind “DO dust,” are health, greatest impact, AND most enjoyable cleaning task. “Whaaaaat?!” Yes, skipping the dusting negatively impacts the health of your home and family, arguably even more-so than skipping the sprinkled toilet seat and yes again, dusting makes just about the biggest dent in your clean both virtually and in verity. IF you haven’t rolled your eyes yet or completed dismissed me as absolutely BONKERS, let me push you over the cliff you were tip-toeing on by audaciously suggesting, dusting can even be the most enjoyable of ALL cleaning tasks. Now…………… before you COMPLETELY discredit me, here me out.

Dust For Health & Hygiene

My daughter having asthma drove me to dig into allergens and triggers, a trip that took me into depths I never wanted to explore. I learned that carpeting and upholstery, drapes and stuffed animals all held allergens that couldn’t come clean, or at least frequently and easily and so I did away with most of them in an effort to reduce triggers. Family pet (kitty) moved outdoors and dog had his own side of the house and she and he didn’t cross sides. My furniture was limited to wood, leather (anything wipeable) or slip-covered and washable. My vacuum had to be HEPA filtered and cleaners had to be non-aerosol and 100% non-chemical and dusting had to be thorough and weekly, sometimes even twice a week if animals were in or wood stove was on during winter, depositing its sooty dust on everything. Fighting asthma triggers was such a flipping chore!…….but ANYTHING was better than watching a small child fight for air. Amongst the research I learned, while on a trip to CT Science museum, the icing on the cake or should I say the fire lit under my butt that truly put this car in dust-drive. Read this next part REALLY slowly and let it sink in. I learned that dust actually holds small, micro-scopic species and that the presence of their FECES in the dust is what we and anyone breathing it in is ACTUALLY reacting to. 🤔😳🤢🤮

GROOOOOSSSSS!!!!!!!

If that fact alone isn’t enough to make you drop the screen your reading this on and run neurotically around the house dusting and DAILY from here on out, then read on, you need a LITTLE more work.

Dust For the Biggest Bang

Dust blocks the sparkle n shine of your clean home, so in merely removing the dust, your home will shine brighter and scream, “I’m clean!” Dust also blocks the smell of clean, requiring artificial scents to mask it and still feel clean, when simply removing the dust leaves you with the freshness of nothingness. Ever wonder what clean smells like? Nothing at all. Try making a candle of that one, Yankee Candle. When your home is dust-free you can BREATHE again. Think I’m full of it? You underestimate the power of the nose. It’s more reliable than the eyes. Realtors regularly tell homeowners attempting to sell, to keep fresh scents blazing that associate with homey and clean feelings, like a pot roast of water simmering on the stove with cinnamon sticks or apple peels, or spray lemon essential oils and have a bowl full of lemons on the table. I remember my husband telling me his high-school best friend was in the area with his most recent girlfriend and was stopping in shortly, which I just about dropped my stomach on the floor in hearing. Pregnant with our fourth child, and having just finished a full day of work and then picking up my eight-year-old son from private school, I was rudely awakened and suddenly aware of what my four-year-old son and two -year-old daughter had done to the house during daddy’s shift. Quick thinking and desperation I grabbed a bottle of Asian Lemongrass floor cleaner from Aromatherapy Naturals and started spraying the floor in front of the front door and dry mopping it up, backing my way through the dining room and into the half bath and then onto the living room, dropping it only when I saw headlights enter the driveway. What would you know, the moment they entered the door, my husband’s friend’s girlfriend exclaimed, “It smells great in here! Everything is so clean!” She wasn’t blind, she was perfect. She wasn’t low maintenance or down to earth, she was hood-winked. So much for vision is the strongest sense. 🤣

Just Dust For the Fun of It

CanNOT BELIEVE I haven’t lost you yet!

You’re thinking, “If this girl can convince me dusting is fun then I’m voting her into office, right? Ok-well, I am a firm believer that the woman’s place is in the House-

and the Senate. So here I go. 🥰

Dusting is the pre-work out to every clean. The warm-up. It’s gets your blood moving and pits cookin’. It’s fabulous cardio and excellent aerobic exercise. It’s also low-impact, meaning it isn’t taxing the joins or the old bones or back and doesn’t require the elbow grease the rest of the cleaning task regularly does so that makes it perky, endorphin rushing and easy. Easy to enjoy that is. 😜

Dusting gives you a run around the whole house and an eye in every corner. You get the inside scoop on what’s going on where and notice stuff everywhere. This can make dusting stressful, so be sure to pull out your iPhone that is playing your favorite tune as you go and jot down a note for everything that you see that needs attention and get closure that it’s taken care of. And it will be. The next time you have only fifteen minutes and don’t know where to start or what to do, pull up that list and knock one of ‘em down. But don’t stop now just keep going and you will be amazed at all the missing things you find, stress-free. Dusting professionally should include a little “tidy n fluff” as the gals and I used to call it, where we would corral the clutter into neat piles and fluff the couch pillows and the throws putting everything in order but not picking it up or putting it away, as that would take you away from the dusting task as well as take up a TON more time. Tidying the mess and dusting underneath, atop, around and behind it is sufficient, leaving the house shining, sparkling and smelling fresh. I HAVE to mention that when your dusting your own home, it gives you a chance to enjoy each piece you keep, revel over the moments captures and showcased with each frame, dote over the keepsakes kids keep of their handiwork and really ENJOY keeping your home and the things in it as you love on and remember each item that’s gotten stocked away on a shelf somewhere. Here is where the MOST enjoyment lays. Even dusting other’s homes, I learn about them as a person, as I care for things they felt worthy of keeping, by dusting and shining them. It’s so nice when your left with a pride in all that you keep over feeling overwhelmed by it all, which is so typical. When things we keep are kept, and kept well, it’s easy to replace guilt with pride. There you have it. Try it first. Then decide if I’m right or wrong. Challenge yourself to engrossing yourself in the dust task. And enjoying it.

Whatever excuse you need to hang onto in order to get the dusting job done, just pick one: health and hygiene, biggest bang or just for fun, and let it take dusting from the back burner onto the front burner and kick-start a deeper clean in your regular regime.

Or……..Don’t

I would’ve never been able to come up with a don’t when it comes to dusting, as one who absolutely loves the job and would beg for the assignment when walking onto a job with a co-worker about to split the clean with me, so I’m gonna thank Joan, my senior cleaner for coming up with this one. Joan, I believe, is a melancholic, by-the-books, fifty-five year old professional cleaner (I may be threatened with law-suit for revealing her age) that ran circles around cleaners half her age and was on my staff for five years before she retired. Her attention to fine detail was pristine, her full effort was released onto EVERY minute aspect of her work and she had the stamina and work ethic of a Spartan. There is a reason the phrase, Joan-up,” is so common. I’m it implying that it was my Joan over Saint Jon of Arc who inspired that phrase, but that the name Joan and the person who wears it is tough as nails. But…..Joan had an Achilles heal and that was dusting; she just didn’t see the point in it, though she did it, methodically and meticulously, she would regularly in jest, mention we should just skip the task, and none would be the wiser. It was she that sent me an email one random day before she started her shift, with this lovely poem by another wise-woman, advising us all to make the most of our time, our days, our life and do SOMETHING ELSE OTHER THAN DUST. I hope you like it, from Joan to you, because it’s all I have to support the don’t side of dusting.

Dust If You Must

Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture, or write a letter,
Bake a cake, or plant a seed;
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there’s not much time,
With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
Music to hear, and books to read;
Friends to cherish, and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world’s out there
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it’s not kind.
And when you go (and go you must)
You, yourself, will make more dust.”

By Rose Milligan

Poll

After reading this, I’d love to know what side you swayed, mine or Joan’s, Dust or Don’t; so if you leave your vote in the comment section of this post, Joan and I would get such a riot out of the competition of seeing which way you swayed. I anxiously anticipate getting to send her a link to this post, pointing a haha-told-ya-so finger with a big, “I win! “ in the subject header of the email I send it in, and half-nervously expect to put my tail between my legs and instead send it with an emoji sticking it’s tongue out; sore-looser than I am. That’s us. We love the comedy in our differences and in that and many more ways we are just the same; two peas-in-pod. To Joan, I miss working with you SO much.

Here’s a little freebie, just for getting the bottom of this post; it’s an adult chore card for dusting. Print, laminate and put it into your cleaning caddy or hole-punch it and lace the hole with a C-clip or zip-tie and hang from somewhere convenient in your home. You could even put it on the fridge as a reminder to dust and reminded of some things that should be getting dusted monthly [M] or weekly [W]. Enjoy!!