7 Dusting Mistakes You're Making (and What to Do Instead), According to a Cleaning Pro

Dusting is an important task to help you minimize the amount of germs, mites, and allergens floating throughout your home. However, if you feel like you're cleaning regularly and still facing a ridiculous amount of dust, you are likely making some common dusting mistakes, such as using the wrong tools or skipping over surfaces.

Fortunately, it's easy to adjust your dusting habits for a better clean. We talked with a cleaning professional to give you the inside scoop on the most common dusting mistakes and how you can avoid them.

Dusting at the End of Your Cleaning Routine

If you're putting off dusting until the end of your cleaning routine, you're doing it incorrectly.

"Dust falls everywhere," says Jade Piper, the operations manager at BetterCleans. "You want to start from the top and work your way down."

In other words, make sure you're cleaning and dusting your ceilings, then walls, then countertops, and finally the furniture and floors last. This will help you avoid cleaning different areas of your home twice.

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Dusting Around Items in Your Home

This is one of the most common dusting mistakes, so don't feel bad if you're guilty of it: dusting around items. For instance, if you're dusting a book shelf or kitchen counter and wiping around the books, appliances, and decor, you're bound to miss a significant amount of dust.

The same is true of larger possessions like sofas and dressers. If you want to create a cleaner and more hygienic home, make sure you're moving items out of the way to dust efficiently.

Dusting Too Quickly

When you're dusting too quickly, it's quite likely you're just pushing dust around your home rather than cleaning it up. When it comes to this particular chore, patience is essential for an effective clean.

"What really works is taking your time," Piper says. "You might be swiping fast, but you’re not getting the dust that’s deeply settled."

Forgetting to Clean Vents and Air Purifiers

If you feel like dust is a never-ending issue in your home, it's possible you're inadvertently making it worse. Products like air conditioners and air purifiers circulate clean, cool air throughout the home, but only if they're cleaned often and properly.

Make sure you clean out the vents in these products regularly to keep the dust to a minimum in your home.

Skipping Over Some Surfaces

Many of us are quick to dust bookshelves, countertops, and other flat surfaces, but dust accumulates everywhere. To dust well, says Piper, you can't neglect surfaces like walls, doors, and even the sides of your furniture.

"Dust doesn’t just stay on tables and shelves," Piper says. "It sneaks onto vertical surfaces too, and if you're not paying attention, you'll miss a lot of it."

To combat this common dusting mistake, make sure you wipe down vertical surfaces in your home with a damp microfiber cloth.

Using the Wrong Tools to Dust

Another common cleaning mistake we've encountered is using a feather duster or dry rag to clean surfaces throughout your home. The problem with these dusting tools is they don't pick up dust well, if at all. Instead, they just float dust from one surface to another.

If you really want to get rid of dust in your home, a slightly damp rag is imperative so you can pick up the dirt and debris.

Dusting in Poor Lighting

Dusting is not the most complicated cleaning method. It's the reason why some of the most common dusting mistakes, like dusting too quickly and dusting at the end of your cleaning routine are relatively simple fixes.

That said, another easy dusting mistake to correct is dusting in low light. In our haste to dust quickly, we might forget to turn up the lights and may miss a significant portion of dust in the process.

"Without proper lighting, you’re just guessing where the dust might be hiding," Piper says. "Good lighting makes all the difference."