Dear June: My Blinds Are Driving Me Batty

Photo by AngryJulieMonday

Dear June,

You have mentioned a few times now in our daily to-do lists to clean the blinds. My question is, what's the best way to accomplish this task? I about tore my blinds right off the wall trying to clean them the other day. Micro-fiber is one of my best friends but it has not done the trick for these pesky blinds. I also have a steam contraption (which I love and is good for 'green' cleaning might I add) that has a hose with a fluffy attachment on the end specifically for blind cleaning, and all it did was smear the dust around. I'm at a loss, and now my blinds look worse than they did before I tried to clean them! Please help!

M.F., Allen Park, MI


Dear M.F. from Allen Park, (who owns a fluffy attachment!)

The easiest plan is to throw the blinds out each month and buy new ones.

BUT. In case you are not Donald Trump . . .

Cleaning the blinds has been on the e-mail list a few times recently because they collect dirt and dust so easily. Dusting the blinds often is an important key to avoiding the whole take-em-out-back-and-hose-em strategy.

In the event that you cannot dust them as often as you'd like, one idea is taking them down and putting them in the bathtub to soak (being mindful of any non-plastic parts that can't get wet).

Just last week, I hung mine in the shower and used the handheld shower head to gently rinse each layer.

I like to make a solution using a gallon of warm water and a half cup of automatic dishwasher detergent. Once the ingredients dissolve, I dip a cloth (or paint brush) into the mixture and gently clean each blind.

As much as it's disturbing seeing all of that dust attached to the blinds, we can be thankful the blinds are doing their job and keeping that junk out of our lungs!

Happy dusting--