Does anyone have a teenager or other petty criminal in need of some sort of creative punishment?
Or: do you have any advice for me on how to clean my window blinds?
It occurred to me on Saturday as I was struggling to wipe them down, post-installation of window air unit, that trying to get them clean is truly some sort of psychological torture.
It’s like some sort of filth is absolutely caked onto the plastic. Swiffers don’t pick it up. Soap and water on a soft cloth just seem to smear the filth around. And what is this stuff? Where does it come from? You’d think I’m cooking up meth in my bedroom. I don’t even smoke cigarettes any more. Jeesh.
Thing is, even if any of you do give me a helpful household hint on how to tackle this task, I won’t want to use it. As I scrubbed away last Saturday, seemingly only smearing wet dirt around, I decided that I wouldn’t even subject a paid worker to do this job, for any amount of money. It’s beneath all of us. Lower than dirt, indeed.
Tags: cleaning, home, organization
As much as I like to re-use what I have and conserve my monetary resources (and I hate loading landfills with more plastics that don’t break down), I’ve come to the realization that the best way to clean these plastic blinds is to replace with new ones. I’ve tried all cleaning methods – soaking in bathtub and then scrubbing; putting an old sock on my hand and spraying it heavily w/ some kind of greasecutting spray and running over blinds; diluted ammonia and a sponge; etc. I ended up grimy and the blinds still gummy and dirt-smeared. So in the trash they went on clean-up day (they might have been picked up by someone more resourceful than I) and I bought drapes for two rooms (take down and wash!) and new ($7) blinds for two other rooms.
I do wash them by hand. I use a mixture of dish soap, a degreaser (orange) and vinegar in hot water and lay the blinds flat on the deck. Scrub one side of each slat with a dish scrubber, then turn the slats over and do it again. Rinse them off well. I took a picture and posted it on FB while the project was ongoing, but can’t find it now. It makes an impressive difference. It is A LOT of work, though.