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Tired of dust settling on your furniture and baseboards just days after cleaning? In this video, we reveal a simple household trick that can help reduce dust buildup, keep surfaces looking cleaner for longer, and make your regular cleaning routine much easier.
You'll discover:
• A simple DIY dust-reducing method
• How to apply it safely to furniture and baseboards
• Common mistakes to avoid
• Tips for keeping your home cleaner between deep cleans
• Easy cleaning hacks that save time and effort
Whether you're looking to cut down on constant dusting or just want your home to stay fresh longer, this easy trick is worth trying!
If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to LIKE 👍, SUBSCRIBE 🔔, and leave a comment letting us know your favorite cleaning hack.
#CleaningHacks #DustingTips #HomeCleaning #FurnitureCare #BaseboardCleaning #DIYCleaning #HouseholdHacks #CleanHome #CleaningTips #HomeMaintenance
Tired of dust settling on your furniture and baseboards just days after cleaning? In this video, we reveal a simple household trick that can help reduce dust buildup, keep surfaces looking cleaner for longer, and make your regular cleaning routine much easier.
You'll discover:
• A simple DIY dust-reducing method
• How to apply it safely to furniture and baseboards
• Common mistakes to avoid
• Tips for keeping your home cleaner between deep cleans
• Easy cleaning hacks that save time and effort
Whether you're looking to cut down on constant dusting or just want your home to stay fresh longer, this easy trick is worth trying!
If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to LIKE 👍, SUBSCRIBE 🔔, and leave a comment letting us know your favorite cleaning hack.
#CleaningHacks #DustingTips #HomeCleaning #FurnitureCare #BaseboardCleaning #DIYCleaning #HouseholdHacks #CleanHome #CleaningTips #HomeMaintenance
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Run your finger along the top of the baseboard behind your door, the one nobody looks at, and hold it
00:05up.
00:06That grey felt of dust on your fingertip has been building there for months, maybe years, and it is not
00:12sitting quiet.
00:13Every time the door swings, every time someone walks past, every time the heat comes on and the air moves
00:20through the room,
00:21a little of that dust lifts off and floats up and settles on everything you own, and some of it
00:27you breathe.
00:27You dust the tabletops and the shelves where you can see, and three days later the fine grey film is
00:34back.
00:35And you cannot understand why, because you cleaned.
00:38And the reason is that you have been wiping the dust you can see, while the real store of it
00:43sits low and high and forgotten,
00:45on the baseboards and the door frames and the tops of the trim and down in the vents, quietly resupplying
00:52the whole room.
00:53So the trouble was never that you do not dust.
00:56The trouble is two things nobody told you.
00:59The first is that most of the dust in a room does not live on the furniture at all.
01:04It lives on the ledges and the baseboards and the vents you never reach, and from there it keeps refilling
01:10the air.
01:11And the second is that the way most people dust, with a dry cloth or a dry duster, does not
01:17truly take the dust away at all.
01:19It just stirs it up off the surface and sends it floating to land somewhere else.
01:24So you are not removing the dust, you are only moving it around the room.
01:29Both of those are why the film keeps coming back, and both of them have a plain remedy that costs
01:35almost nothing and asks you to bend over, not at all.
01:39Quick word before we go further.
01:42My name is Esther Yoda, and the old methods my husband and I use, the household ways handed down to
01:48me, the kind I am sharing today, and many more like it, are more than I could ever fit into
01:54one video.
01:54I have gathered the whole of them together into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoda.com.
02:01If today's tip helps you, that book is where the rest of it lives, the full store of what my
02:07mother and grandmother taught me, all in the one place.
02:11Now, back to the dust.
02:13Let me tell you how I first understood the real trouble with dusting, because it came to me the way
02:19most of my keeping did, from watching an older woman work.
02:22My grandmother did not chase dust with a feather duster, the way you see folks do, flicking it about so
02:29it flew up in the light and settled right back down the moment she left the room.
02:34She thought that foolish, and she was right.
02:37What she used was a cloth, a soft rag, and it was always just barely damp, wrung out so hard
02:44you would not think it wet at all.
02:45And she would draw it slow along a surface, not flick, draw.
02:50And the dust came up onto the cloth and stayed there.
02:54I asked her once why she wet the rag, and she said,
02:58Child, a dry rag pushes the dust, and a damp rag holds it.
03:02If you do not hold it, you have only made it move.
03:05And then she rinsed the gray out of that rag in the basin, and I saw the water go cloudy.
03:11And she said there, now it is gone, out of the house, not just move to the next shelf.
03:17That was the whole lesson, and it is the heart of what I am giving you today.
03:21And I remember she had one more trick I have kept my whole life, for the high places she could
03:27not reach, being a small woman grown stooped with her years.
03:31She would take the broom and wrap her damp rag over the head of it, and bind it fast, and
03:37reach the high ledges and the ceiling corners with it from where she stood, and the low baseboards too, without
03:43ever getting down onto her old knees.
03:45I thought it clever as a girl, and I think it clever still, for it is the very thing I
03:51am showing you, and it was old already when she showed it to me.
03:54The English have a name now for a long-handled dusting tool, and sell it dear in the store.
04:00But my grandmother made hers from a broom and a rag and a bit of string, and it reached every
04:06ledge in the house and cost her nothing, and hers had the damp cloth that theirs, being dry, does not.
04:13That was her way with everything, to make from what she had the tool that the store would sell you,
04:19and to make it work a little better besides.
04:21For the damp cloth catches and holds the dust, where a dry one only stirs it.
04:27You know this already, without knowing it, from another corner of life.
04:31When your wagon, or your buggy, or, for the English, your automobile, is dusty and dirty, you do not take
04:38a dry rag to it and call it clean, for a dry rag only smears the grime about.
04:44You take a wet cloth, or you wash it with water, because the water lifts the dirt and carries it
04:50away.
04:50It is the very same with the dust in your house.
04:53A dry cloth, or a dry duster, stirs the dust into the air, where it floats and settles again.
05:00A barely damp cloth takes hold of the dust and keeps it, and then you rinse it away, down the
05:06drain, out of the house for good.
05:08That one difference, dry against barely damp, is the difference between moving your dust around and truly being rid of
05:16it.
05:17Now here is the whole of the method, and it is so simple, you will wonder that anyone made it
05:22hard.
05:23You need a broom, or a long-handled duster, or any long-handled thing you can wrap a cloth over,
05:30so that you can reach the high ledges and the low baseboards, both, without bending your back or dragging out
05:36a stool.
05:36You need a soft old cloth, an old flour sack towel, or a worn rag.
05:43A light-colored one, so you can see the grime you gather.
05:46You need a bucket of warm water.
05:49And you need a rubber band, or a bit of string, to bind the cloth onto the broom head.
05:54That is all. Not a dollar of it is anything you do not already have.
05:58You dampen the cloth in the warm water, and you wring it out well, wrung near dry, damp and no
06:05more.
06:06For a dripping cloth will streak your walls and leave water sitting on the wood, and we do not want
06:12the baseboards left wet.
06:13Barely damp is the whole secret, wrung until you would swear it was dry, but cool to the touch.
06:20Then you lay that damp cloth over the head of your broom and bind it on snug with the rubber
06:26band or the string so it will not slip.
06:29And now you have a long-handled dusting tool that reaches every ledge in the room, and a cloth on
06:36it that holds the dust instead of scattering it.
06:38Then you simply draw it along, slow and steady, wherever the dust has been hiding.
06:44Along the top edge of every baseboard where that gray felt has built up.
06:49Along the door frames and the window frames and the top of the trim over the doors, the high ledges
06:55you have not touched in a year.
06:57Over the vents, the floor vents and the wall vents both, drawing the cloth into the slots to lift out
07:04the grime packed down in them.
07:06For a vent is a terrible gatherer of dust and blows it back into the room every time the air
07:12moves.
07:13You can turn the broom this way and that to get the cloth into the nooks and the corners.
07:18And when the cloth goes gray, you take it to your bucket, rinse the dust out into the water, wring
07:24it near dry again, and go on.
07:27You will be amazed and a little ashamed at how the water turns gray and brown from places you thought
07:33were clean,
07:33but that gray in the water is the whole point, for it is dust that is now out of your
07:38house instead of floating back into your air.
07:41Let me name for you all the places the dust hides that you never think to reach, for once you
07:47go looking, you will find it has gathered in a dozen forgotten spots.
07:51The top of every door, that flat edge above it that no eye ever falls on, is furred with dust.
07:59The tops of the window casings and the picture frames and the tall furniture, the wardrobe and the cupboard and
08:05the tall clock,
08:06all the high flat places above your eye that you never see and so never clean.
08:12The ledge of the chair rail, if your house has one.
08:15The blades of a ceiling fan, which fling their gathered dust across the whole room the moment they turn.
08:21The top of the door to a room, the light fixtures, the tops of the tall books on a shelf.
08:27And lo, the baseboards all round every room, behind the doors, behind and beneath the furniture that never moves, the
08:36register vents in the floor.
08:38These are the true storehouses of the dust in a home, high and low, the places above and below the
08:45reach of your eye.
08:46And because you do not see them, you do not clean them.
08:50And so they gather and gather and feed the air of the room, year upon year.
08:55The damp cloth on the long handle reaches every one of them, high and low, without a ladder and without
09:03your knees on the floor.
09:04And that is why it changes everything.
09:07Not a new potion, but simply reaching, at last, the places the dust was always hiding.
09:14And draw the cloth, do not scrub or flick it.
09:18This is the way my grandmother drew her rag, slow and steady in one direction.
09:23So the dust rolls up onto the cloth and stays, rather than being knocked off into the air.
09:30A quick flicking motion, the way folks use a feather duster, only launches the dust up to float and resettle.
09:38A slow, steady draw of the damp cloth gathers it in.
09:42So take your time along each ledge, one slow pass, then lift the cloth away with its gathered grey and
09:50rinse it, rather than scrubbing back and forth and stirring what you have gathered back into the air.
09:56Slow and drawn and damp is the whole of the technique.
10:00And it is no technique at all really, only patience.
10:04The corners are where this pays you best.
10:07The high corners where the wall meets the ceiling and the low corners behind the doors.
10:12The places you would have to fetch a ladder or get down on your knees to reach, and so, in
10:18plain truth, you almost never do.
10:20How often does anyone truly get up into the high corner of a room to clean it, once in five
10:26years?
10:27But with a light tool on a long handle, you can run your damp cloth right up into that corner
10:33from where you stand,
10:34and take down the cobweb and the dust in a moment.
10:37And you will do it, because it costs you no bending and no ladder and no dread.
10:42That is a thing worth understanding about keeping a house.
10:46The chore you will actually do is worth ten chores that are too much bother to face.
10:51A method easy enough that you will do it often beats the thorough method you do once a year and
10:57then dread.
10:58Now, as to what you put in the water, for this is where the videos going around make more of
11:04a promise than the thing can keep,
11:06and I will be plain with you rather than sell you a wonder.
11:09The trick as it is passed around has you add a scented fabric softener or a sweet-smelling hair conditioner
11:16to the water,
11:17a spoonful to the bucket, and there are two claims made for it.
11:21The first claim is true enough and worth having.
11:24It makes the whole business smell clean and pleasant, and your rooms carry that fresh scent after.
11:30And there is a plainer good in that than you might think, which I will come to.
11:34The second claim is that the softener leaves a coating on the surface that repels the dust so it will
11:40not settle again.
11:41That dust will never be a problem after.
11:45Now here I must be plain with you.
11:47There may be a little something to it, for the softener does leave a faint residue,
11:51and some folks swear the dust is slower to gather after.
11:55But I would not promise you that dust will never come back, because dust always comes back.
12:01It is the nature of a house with people living in it, and anyone who tells you a spoonful of
12:06softener ends dust forever is promising more than it can give.
12:11So use the softener if you like the smell, and if it slows the dust a little, that is a
12:16small bonus and no more.
12:17Do not count on it to do your cleaning for you.
12:21And I will tell you what I myself use in the water, being who I am,
12:25for the fabric softener and the sweet conditioner are English store products and not truly my way.
12:31I use a good splash of plain white vinegar in the warm water, and here is the reason it is
12:37as good or better.
12:38The vinegar cuts the greasy film that dust clings to, so the surface is left truly clean, and the next
12:46dust has less to hold onto.
12:48And the vinegar smell airs off in a few minutes, and leaves no perfume behind, which suits me.
12:54If you want a pleasant scent instead, a drop or two of a plain oil, lavender or lemon, in the
13:01vinegar water gives you the fresh smell without the store softener.
13:05Either way, warm water and a little something to cut the grease on a barely damp cloth is the whole
13:12of what the water needs.
13:14The good of it was never in the softener. It was always in the damp cloth that holds the dust,
13:19and the long handle that reaches where the dust hides.
13:23Here is the good in the pleasant smell that I said I would come to, and it is not a
13:27small thing.
13:28A chore that is pleasant to do is a chore you will do.
13:31If running your damp cloth along the baseboards leaves the room smelling fresh and clean,
13:37you will find yourself doing it, and doing it often, where a grim joyless chore gets put off for months.
13:44My grandmother knew this too, in her way.
13:46She kept a sprig of dried lavender in the linen, and a bit of mint by the wash.
13:52Not for show, but because a house that smells sweet is a house you are glad to keep.
13:57And gladness in the keeping is half of keeping it well.
14:01So if a spoonful of something sweet in the water is what makes you clean your baseboards once a month
14:06instead of once a year,
14:08then that sweet smell has done more good than any dust repelling coating ever could.
14:13For it is the doing of the thing, regularly, that keeps the dust down, not any wonder in the water.
14:19Now let me tell you why the dust matters more than just the look of a grey ledge.
14:24For this is the part that makes it worth the doing.
14:27That dust is not only unsightly, it is what you breathe.
14:31A room thick with settled dust that lifts and floats every time the air stirs, is a room whose air
14:38is full of fine dust,
14:40and that is hard on the lungs, hard on a body prone to sneezing and stuffiness, and the tight chest,
14:47hard on the little children who play low to the floor where the dust settles thickest, and hard on the
14:53old.
14:53The old women knew that a dusty close room made for a poorly household,
14:58and that airing a house and keeping the dust down kept the family well, long before anyone gave a fine
15:05name to why.
15:07So when you take that dust up onto a damp cloth and rinse it out of the house,
15:12you are not only making the ledges look clean, you are cleaning the very air your family breathes,
15:18and that is a true and worthy thing, not vanity.
15:21Now think a moment about who profits from your never being told this.
15:26There is a whole wall at the store of dusting things,
15:29the disposable sheets you snap onto a plastic wand and throw away,
15:33the cans of spray dusting polish, the special cloths, the scented this and the disposable that,
15:40each one sold to you again and again, month upon month, for years.
15:45And the plain truth they will never put on the label is that a barely damp rag on a broom
15:51handle,
15:51rinsed in a bucket of water with a splash of vinegar,
15:55does the work as well or better for almost nothing and throws nothing away.
15:59There is a great deal of money in a dusting sheet you use once and been.
16:04There is none at all in a rag you rinse and use again for ten years.
16:08So the throw away things get the wall and the bright box and the advertisement,
16:13and the old way of the damp rag and the bucket, which every grandmother knew, quietly stops being told.
16:19I do not say there is a plot in it, a room of men scheming to keep you dusting the
16:25dear way.
16:26It is quieter and in a way sadder than a plot, for no one had to scheme at all.
16:32A whole trade simply grew up around selling you a thing to throw away,
16:36and the old way that cost nothing and lasted forever just stopped being passed down, mother to daughter,
16:43because no one anywhere makes a dollar by reminding you of it.
16:46Your grandmother dusted with a damp rag and a bucket and thought nothing of it,
16:51for it was simply how a room was kept.
16:53And somewhere between her kitchen and yours, that plain knowing slipped away,
16:59crowded out by the wall of bright boxes, until keeping the dust down came to mean a monthly purchase,
17:05when it was a rag and a broom and a splash of vinegar all along.
17:10The mending of it is small, and it is in your own two hands,
17:14and it costs you nothing you do not already own.
17:17You wrap the damp cloth over the broom.
17:20You draw it slow along the baseboards and the frames and the vents and the high corners.
17:26You rinse the gray out into the bucket, and you have taken the real store of dust out of your
17:31house
17:32and cleaned the very air, without bending your back or spending a coin.
17:37That is how it comes home, one drawn cloth, one rinsed bucket at a time,
17:43the keeping of your house back in your own hands and out of the throwaway box.
17:49So here is what I would ask of you.
17:52Go and run your finger along the top of the baseboard behind your own door tonight,
17:57the one no one looks at, and see what has been living there.
18:01And then wrap the damp cloth on the broom and take it down.
18:05And come back and tell me in the comments how gray your rinse water turned,
18:10for I do dearly love to hear it.
18:13Tell me, too, the room you were most ashamed of,
18:16the ledge or the corner you had not touched in years,
18:19for we have all got one, and there is no shame in it among friends.
18:24And while you are there, tell me your county and the age of your house,
18:29for the old houses have the deep trim and the high ledges
18:33and the old vents that gather the dust so,
18:36and I learn from every one of you how the dust runs in the old places against the new.
18:41I read every comment.
18:43I learn from you the way the old women learned from one another across the fence line,
18:49one house and one season at a time.
18:51Next time I will show you the plain old way to keep the whole house aired
18:56and the dust down at its source, the airing and the doormats
19:01and the small daily habits that mean far less dust ever gathers to be cleaned,
19:06so that this cleaning comes round easier and seldomer.
19:10There is a right and an old way to keep a home fresh and its air clean
19:15that runs on a few plain things and a little knowing,
19:19and almost none of it comes from a box off the store wall.
19:23But tonight you start with the one baseboard.
19:27You dampen the cloth and wring it near dry.
19:30You bind it on the broom.
19:32You draw it slow along the ledge behind the door where the gray has gathered so long.
19:37And you rinse it out and watch the water go cloudy with a thing that was floating in your air
19:42only a moment ago.
19:43And you will understand, as your grandmother did at her own basin,
19:47that a dry rag only moves the dust and a damp one takes it away.
19:52And that keeping a house was never about buying the right box,
19:56but about the plain knowing of how a thing is truly done.
20:00The house that is dusted with a damp cloth and an open window is the house that remembers
20:05how the old women kept the air sweet and the family well.
20:10And that is a thing we are only just starting to remember.
20:13So that said,
20:13You
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