I just use water with a bit of cleaning stuff and a damp cloth.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
43 points (100.0% liked)
No Stupid Questions
45681 readers
1072 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Damp cloth that captures much of the dust, then going from top to bottom so you're not moving as much of the dust to places you've already dusted
Damp cloth to capture the dust? Or a strong vacuum to capture it once airborne?
A hepa filter to perpetually clean the air prevents dust. But a damp cloth captures nearly all dust if you are careful.
My wife uses an ostrich feather brush. It carries an electrostatic charge that holds the dust.
About these, how do you 'clear' the brush of the accumulated dust?
You need to wipe it onto a bigger ostrich
Damnit. They have ordinance about having those in my building...
You don't have an ostrimat around the corner?
No. In my country the birds have to be certified halal for sale in public areas.
You can wash it off. Just hold the duster under a tap and run cold water over it.
Tap it off on your ankle or a chair leg.
Taylor Swift: inhales
Vacuum with good filter
Use a decent quality duster, cheaper options retain way less dust.
Dust from high to low in a room or area.
After a few strokes, tap out the duster at ground level, on your ankle or a hard surface. This minimizes dust getting in the air.
Finally, vacuum.
How can I wipe the dust in a way so as to avoid just pushing it around so much?
Vacuum it. My friend has a Roomba that does her whole house automatically. I thought those things were ridiculous until I actually saw it.
Also, as someone said, air filtration should get some of the dust out of the air. That is healthy for breathing. If you don't mind the noise, you can make a powerful air filter from a box fan and 4 furnace filters: look up "Corsi-Rosenthal box" for how to do that. Otherwise you can get a smaller one.
Static is your friend.
Buy microfiber dusters and mops.
Buy a couple and see if it’s enough. You want to always have clean ones available. So buy more than what you need for a single cleaning session. At my place we always have a bit more than double what we need for a single cleaning session.
For carpets, you can get a sweeper. They also use static and they’re fantastic.
How to use them? As others in this thread have said: from high areas to low areas.
Should you get the microfiber wet? I’m not sure. Try out both and see what works! I personally don’t like wet microfiber because it adds friction and makes me go over areas slower. But be aware that this could be a me thing. Wet microfiber still picks up dust, so do whatever works for you!
You can buy disposable dust cloths which are good at picking up and holding onto dust.
I can recommend wiping the floor regularly with a damp cloth. Removes a lot of the dust from the room, so that it can't get kicked up and land in other places. And it's relatively quick to do, especially since you don't have to reach all the corners for that either.
You may want to add a bit of lemon acid to the water every few months or so, since the water will leave behind limescale when it dries, which will make your floor less shiny.
The floor? Have you heard of brooms and mops?
Sorry, I meant a mop. Couldn't think of the word and wanted to express that it should just be damp, not actually wet...
Hahaha okay great I was just feeling sorry for your back!
Dust generally falls and settles. Dust raised surfaces with a duster, most of it will settle on the floor. Vacuum floor, then mop.
Yes, not all dust will be collected in this way but the vast majority will.
Note that I don't use a damp whatever until the last step. Dust is so much easier to deal with when it's dry. When it's wet you're just pushing it around.
We have an old central air system that includes an electrostatic filter. So the air gets sucked thru a plastic grid filter, then thru several vertical wires at high voltage, then it passes thru several wide metal ground plates and finally thru the air-conditioning system. Every 3 months or so I check it and remove a thick layer of dust like you would on a dryer machine filter. The unit is old and antiquated but seems to do the job.