LIVING IN DESERT CLIMATE – DEALING WITH DUST
Moving to the desert? Living in a desert? Be prepared to see unusual amount of dust in the house. Here are a few must have items and tips to live dust-free.
These tips could probably help everyone else too. We just need to be the pros of cleaning when we live in the desert.
ave you ever thought that cleaning around the house was bad enough with all the pollutants in major cities with decent levels of humidity like New York City or Tokyo? Go live in the desert and think again. You'll most likely need to deal with everything that we've mentioned in our article, Moving to a Dry Climate, in addition to dealing with the naughty d-word: "dust."
At the very least, you'll end up with accumulating dust on every possible surface including table tops, counters, and the floor if you flunk out on the vacuuming for just a few days. If you're allergic to dust or really sensitive to it, you will most definitely find yourself in sneezing misery.
So, are you planning to move to Phoenix, AZ; Palm Springs, CA; Las Vegas, NV; Albuquerque, NM; Tucson, AZ; or one of the desert cities in the US? Most of the things we'll introduce in our list of housekeeping tips could be of use to anyone, but they will be pretty much mandatory to our friends living in or planning to move to the desert.
1. Get Some Air Purifiers
Air Purifiers effectively reduce the amount of dust along with pollen, odor, allergens, and all sorts of yucky stuff floating around your room. As it is usually true for most appliances, better things cost more. We’ll let you decide on exactly how much you will spend on air purifiers, but as for air purifiers, we would recommend you to buy the best ones possible. We’ve tried out several, and the one from Blueair was definitely our favorite for the larger rooms like the living room. Shown below is the exact model that we use in the living room.
2. Change Air Conditioner Filters Every Month
Speaking of filters, your A/C filters need to be changed on a monthly basis. In fact, a lot of the lease contracts will require you to change those air filters every month when you rent a house or an apartment (or a condo or a townhouse) in the desert. If you don’t change your air conditioner filter routinely, the clogged air flow will make the air conditioner work harder resulting in a higher electric bill. Eventually, the entire system could break from overwork, and you bet it’ll be a pricey repair.
We’ve heard from a few neighbors that cheap filters will do the job since you’ll be replacing them every month anyway. They could for some people. If you have allergies or furry pets in the house though, you would probably rather use specialized filters designed for such purposes.
As you could probably imagine, the microfilter in your car will not last as long as the manufacture estimate because it will be collecting all the sand dust flying outside.
You may have housekeepers that come to clean your home every other day. Great. Most of us do not. If you live in the desert, you will most likely get into the habit of vacuuming at least every two days. Especially when you live in a big house, the task can be pretty daunting and time consuming. Add mopping every two days to your to-do-list in addition to the vacuuming if you have tile or hardwood floors on top of wiping down other surfaces that you would’ve never thought to have required cleaning so often: stair handrails, top of the fridge, TVs and computers, blinds and window sills, not just tables but chairs, and the list could go on forever.
If you could manually vacuum and mop your entire floor space every two days, awesome. We would rather not, so we invested in two Roombas- one for vacuuming, and the other for mopping our hardwood floor. They were the best couple hundred bucks we’ve ever spent.
4. Rewash Your Plates and Utensils Before Using Them
Do we sound too paranoid? Maybe. But for some reason, sand dust visibly accumulates on dishes, silverware, and utensils even when they are stored in the cupboard with the doors shut. Think about it. Dust accumulates over a course of a few days, so there has to be some amount of dust on your plates even after leaving it in the cupboard overnight. Even if you don’t go as far as scrubbing them with a sponge every time before you put food on them, you would at least want to rinse them with water. You’d be eating a substantial amount of sand dust over the course of time otherwise. Gross! As for the cups, we simply leave them upside down. That might work for plates if they stack properly upside down without sliding off to the side.
We really couldn’t help you with any convenient tools to share with you unless you want a commercial dishwasher that would complete its cycle in minutes. It’s probably not something a normal person has in their kitchen. We don’t either.
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